The Stockholm Game
by InTheShadowOfSignificance
Summary: "Pegasus holds all the cards right now. As long as he keeps us prisoner, we're at his mercy no matter the outcome." Duelist Kingdom has no happy ending. AU. Warnings inside.
1. Captives

_**The Stockholm Game**_

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Yugioh, nor do I claim rights to any of the affiliated characters.

**Warnings/Notes:** An alternate ending to the Duelist Kingdom arc in which Pegasus is not always a man of his word. Rated for mild profanity, reference to violence and bodily injury, and mind games in general. Be advised that the rating may change as the story progresses.

* * *

"_Pegasus holds all the cards right now._

_As long as he keeps us prisoner, we're at his mercy no matter the outcome."_

* * *

Deep down none of them had expected this.

Yugi had fought so valiantly, and they too had battled, armor up, hazard signs out, waiting to be torn through by the hurricane of Pegasus's misguided perception. It was a perfect victory. They _earned _it. But in the end, for all their efforts, they had become captives.

The card game did not matter, it never had.

* * *

There were exactly seven cells lining the dungeon walls, four on the right side and three on the left: an odd number. As the group awoke, one by one coming back to the hazy, bleary-eyed reality of dark, damp rooms and iron bars, they realized that he had intended it this way all along. He had _known _every move from the very beginning. The addition of non-duelists was no surprise; he had a cell for them as well. He had calculated their exact number and made preparations for them whether they ended up winners or losers.

In the first right cell, closest to the corridor that led, eventually, back to the main level of the castle, Yugi felt sick. The dim light of wall torches barely illuminated the faces of his friends in the row across from him. His mouth was painfully dry, "Are you okay?" He croaked, there was no saliva to moisturize his tongue or his lips, he felt like he'd been without water for days.

"I'm fine." Ryou spoke tentatively from opposite Yugi, fingers searching for the millennium ring that had vanished from around his neck, "It's gone…" he mused, abandoning the search and occupying his hand with locks of his white-blonde hair.

"Doesn't surprise me," Yugi cleared his throat, reaching for his own millennium item with the same results, "My puzzle's gone too." He felt weak; his heartbeat loud in his ears, the current of blood surging through almost enough to put him over the edge.

"Seto?" The definitive voice pulled him out of near-hysteria; it was Mokuba, alive, fully alive and _talking_.

"I'm here!" The elder Kaiba called out, from what he could gather with an echo and a racing heart working against him, Yugi ventured the two brothers had middle cells, directly across from one another. He swallowed thickly, painfully, trying not to think the worst.

"Grandpa, can you hear me?" No reply, his heart beat faster, slamming against his chest. "Grandpa answer me!" He shouted, choking on the rasping squeak of his own voice.

"Shh!" Kaiba immediately hissed, "He'll hear you!"

"That's the point, Grandpa! GRANDPA!"

"Shh, shh, Yugi please calm down." Her voice was barely a whisper above his screams.

"Tea…" He murmured, then, lifting his eyes from the ground, "Can you see my grandpa? Aside from the barred wall ahead it's all stone where I am, can you see into the cell beside you?"

The brunette stammered for a moment, "N…no." She finally replied, "I can't see anyone across from me or to my right, I think I'm on the end, same side as you. On the opposite side to my left is Mokuba." She concluded.

"And beside him?" Yugi probed.

"It's too dark." She whispered shakily, "I can't see."

"Okay." Kaiba cut in before the two could go any further, "everyone shut up for five minutes and we'll find out who's here." He paused, drawing a deep breath and locking eyes with his brother, "There's no one opposite Tea, which means there are more cells on our side than Mokuba's. Staring with Yugi, wait for the person next to you to say their name, listen hard to make sure they're directly beside you, then say yours so we can work out the order of the row."

"Okay." More voices had joined the chorus on agreement, and, like clockwork, they began.

"Yugi."

A few moments pause, then, "Joey."

The pattern repeated itself until the end of the row, "Seto," then immediately, "Tea."

On the left side opposite Yugi was Ryou, opposite Joey was Tristan, and opposite Seto was Mokuba. There was no telling whether Yugi's grandfather had been released; if he had he was not with them now.

"We have to get out of here." Tea grabbed bars with both hands, standing as directly in the light as she could. "Can anyone pry one loose?" She began to twist and shake the iron rods, hoping there would be even a fraction of weakness.

Tristan had taken to tackling the metal, wincing slightly on impact before feeling for the backmost edge of his tomb and charging again. When his aching body protested the abuse, he tried to kick at the bars. The room was empty save for the stone slab of a bed against a side wall, and two shackles that had been left ominously at his feet.

"They won't budge." He panted, more to Joey than to himself.

"We have to try!" The blonde called out, grabbing the bars like a rope and climbing the best he could, trying to put his full weight against them, "What else can we do?" He tugged and dangled but there was nothing to give him leverage to exert more force, no object to aid in the escape attempt. He grunted, trying to think.

"This isn't helping." Kaiba called out sharply, anger searing at the thought of Mokuba being so far from him, even now. "Everyone take a minute and think." He had come to the very front of his stone box room, and, like Tea before him, stood directly in front of the bars. "We have to figure out what he wants. I thought it was just about Kaiba Corp but that doesn't explain the five of you."

"Has Pegasus really gone to these lengths just for control of Kaiba Corp?"

Seto scoffed, "Pegasus's dueling technology is outdated. Without Kaiba Corp innovations in the dueling arena Industrial Illusions would lose millions; Duel Monsters itself would be a thing of the past."

"Okay…" Ryou conceded, confusion still lingering in his voice, "But as you've said that doesn't explain why we're here. I can understand Pegasus's interest in the millennium items being that he's become so powerful with his eye as an asset, but that still leaves Joey, Tristan, and Tea."

"Maybe he thought we would talk." Tea murmured dejectedly, and then a bit louder, "He probably expected us to go to the police if he tried to make off with the millennium items and keep the Kaibas here, but he has to know the world isn't just going to ignore the disappearances, maybe ours will fade eventually, but Yugi's? Kaiba's? No. Something doesn't fit."

Kaiba chuckled lowly, reaching a hand out as far as he could stretch for Mokuba's. The younger did the same, their fingertips touched, he strained hard, tendons in his shoulder threatening to tear if he persisted, but the bars were not very giving. He could feel Mokuba for a fleeting moment and touched nails that'd grown too long from neglect, grazing the edges of his dirty fingers.

"Listen." He said, eyes closed, face pressed against the cool metal, "You have no idea the kind of authority you're dealing with. When you're a company with the standing of Industrial Illusions and you have a good reputation not just within the country but internationally, you control the press. You can spoon feed these people anything and they'll gobble it up. There may be some suspicion on internet forums but that's hardly enough to save us. We can't expect any outside party to interfere."

Joey growled low in his throat, punching the stone wall as his exasperation built, "So he wants more than your company and more than Yugi and Bakura's millennium items, what else is there? And if he's not afraid of answering for this, what's he going to do with us? Why not just trap us on the island? Why keep us in cages like animals?" He punched the wall again, drawing a slow stream of crimson from his fist.

"You know Pegasus's sick game as well as the rest of us by now." Kaiba had calmed slightly from the contact with Mokuba, "What more reason does he need than to say he can?"

"So if it was all for the sake of torture, if it was "all in good fun" for him, why go through the guise of a tournament at all? You've said negative attention from the press is no object, which is apparently true if he could sneak Mokuba under the radar all those months, so why the big charade?"

"It was part of the charade." Tea's voice trembled as she said it, "Don't you see Bakura; he's been toying with us all this time. He wanted to see what we could do."

"Or," Tristan interjected, remembering Mokuba's once lifeless body against his own as he carried it out of the dungeon and into the light of the dueling arena on the main level, "He wanted us to see what _he_ could do. I think it's like Mai said when it came time for Kaiba and Pegasus to have their duel, it was meant to intimidate us. All of this is him flaunting his own control. We have to show him we won't back down."

"Tristan's right, we've beaten everything else he's thrown at us. We just have to keep fighting." Yugi concurred.

"Guys, as much as I'd like to agree and as much as I want out of here…I think it's time we realize this is a different game. In the tournament there were chances to gain the upper hand, in a dungeon I just don't see how we can. This is an ultimatum. Whatever Pegasus _really_ wants was saved for now."

In an instant there was clapping from beyond the corridor, followed by low, rolling laughter bouncing along the walls until it came to stand menacingly in front of Ryou. "Very _good _Bakura." Their captor reached a hand through the bars of the boy's cell too fast for him to move away, gripping his cheeks mockingly. "I always knew you were a clever one." His voice dropped several octaves into the rasping growl of an animal.

"Fuck off." He was not about to be subdued by a clown parading himself around in Armani while they sat and twiddled their thumbs in despair.

Pegasus jerked his face forward with such force that even Bakura's grip on the metal in front of him was not enough to stop the impact. He stifled a cry as his lip, cheekbones, and forehead connected hard. His bottom lip swelled almost instantly, blood pooling against the only layer of skin he had not bitten through.

"Now, now." The elder taunted, fingers leaving bruises at the younger's jawline, "Don't be so gauche as to resort to profanity, it really doesn't suit you."

"Pegasus!" Yugi threw his own body against the bars, "What do you want? Where is my grandfather?"

The man merely chuckled, turning to face the smaller teen but not advancing toward him, "That, Yugi-boy, is the question of the hour. Your grandfather's shell is being well maintained, but as the brothers Kaiba will tell you his soul is on a little…vacation." He laughed maniacally into the stillness.

"Let him go." Tears sprung to his eyes and he could not stop them falling down his cheeks, "I'll give you whatever you want." He conceded, because the spirit of the puzzle was not there to build him up, and because any thoughts of his grandfather being hurt were unbearable, "He has…grandpa has nothing to do with this."

Their abductor approached, he could sense it even with his eyes closed in an attempt to quell the liquid leaking steadily from them. "Don't you see, Yugi-boy." His tones rose to their characteristically cheery pitch, a sing-song tone that made them all want to retch. "I already have anything I could ever want from you, in this castle you are mine, body and soul, to do with whatever I please. Your grandfather may have little to do with it now, but I assure you if you try anything like your friend nursing his wound…" He paused to crouch to Yugi's direct eye level, malice flaring over his features, "that will change in an_ instant_."

Yugi swallowed hard, the dryness in his mouth and throat more apparent as he tried to form words that would not come. The few tears he had managed before were slowing, even as his chest heaved with stifled sobs and his nostrils flexed as he swallowed again and again, desperately trying to compose himself.

"I don't understand…" Tea, though equally afraid, was too angry to break. With those she cherished at least able bodied and of sound mind, it was easier for her to be bold, "How could you do this?" She seethed, blinking hard to fight off her own waterworks.

"Be quiet!" She jumped, fingers trembling against the barricade, though she had always sensed danger in Pegasus, she had known nothing of the fierce man before them now. She didn't know whether to assault him with words or to beg for his mercy, it seemed both avenues were hopeless.

"Enough!" Kaiba spat through bared teeth, "Tell us what you want and be done with it."

"Kaiba-boy!" He sang out, snapping his fingers to fully illuminate their narrow passageway, "It is so hard to believe I just want company?"

"Considering the source, I should say not." The brunet shot back haughtily.

"Come now Kaiba, petty insults aren't going to get you out of there." He moved to stand in front of Mokuba's cell, causing the boy to back as far away as he could manage, "You wouldn't want to tempt me into doing some rash," he reached into his suit pocket to retrieve a blank soul card, "would you?" Kaiba bowed his head in defeat, his hands tight fists, teeth clenched so hard he felt the force might shake them, one by one, from his mouth. Pegasus smiled broadly, "Just as I thought." He noted, turning to face the cheeky brother, "Now be a good boy." He instructed, tone dangerously high and mocking, "and say you're sorry."

Kaiba flinched as his captor beckoned a black suited guard into the light, taking a ring of keys from him with a sickeningly casual word of thanks, "You won't get away with this." The CEO locked eyes with his aggressor, "Stop using innocent children to get what you want and face me head on!"

The taller laughed uproariously, dangling a golden key between two fingers before placing it in the keyhole of the younger Kaiba's cell and turning, one click – two – "I've already _done_ that Kaiba-boy," at the third turn of the key, Kaiba heard the door unhinge, creaking open toward Mokuba, "You lost."

"Pegasus-"

"I am not a man of patience, Seto Kaiba." He grabbed a fistful of Mokuba's hair as the younger thrashed about in his hold, running as hard as his feet would allow while still in the man's grasp.

"Seto!" He screeched twisting and reaching for the keys Pegasus held just out of his reach. The elder stood firm, jerking the boy backward and nearly immobilizing him with the sudden pain and force, in retaliation Mokuba did the only thing he could think of, pushed his weight hard against Pegasus's chest, biting at the arm he dangled above his head.

Reacting immediately, Pegasus released the child's hair and jerked him away by his shirt collar, the thick material of his suit jacket absorbing the majority of the boy's bite. "Don't you dare!" He growled darkly, tossing the keys to the guard and using the now free hand to slap Mokuba roughly across the face.

"Alright – alright, I'm sorry!" Seto panted out, thrusting his arms through the bars again to reach for his brother, "Let him go." He breathed shakily, "You've got your apology, let him go."

"Say it again." Pegasus's body had relaxed, his shoulders dropping and arms loosening in their grip around the small boy at his fingers. With the hand that had previously struck the child, he moved to stroke the reddening area of his cheek. Mokuba whimpered at the touch, again trying to pull away, "Shh, shh, shh, enough of that." He chided, turning with the boy in hand to face Kaiba, who still reached for him as far as restraints would allow.

"I'm sorry." He repeated.

"I'm sorry _sir_, for being fresh with you." He prompted, stroking Mokuba's hair as he looked hard at the ground, unable to meet his brother's eyes. Shame had swelled inside of him so fast it took his breath away, he was always too slow and too small to fight, in the end it was Seto who paid the price. Being made a fool for standing up for himself…the younger Kaiba was wanted to hit his abductor, claw at his throat until they were both bloodied and heaving and exhausted, but he could not.

Seto ground his teeth, "I'm sorry…sir, for being fresh."

Pegasus smiled almost genuinely, the others looked to one another in confusion and paranoia. There was no telling what the man might do next, and in truth they were just as afraid for Mokuba as Seto. "Good boy." He praised, calmly giving Mokuba a push to Seto's outstretched arms.

"Seto." He whimpered, body wracked with sobs as they elder held him as close as the trap would allow. "I'm sorry." He cried, clutching the elder's arms and waist, "I'm sorry."

"It's okay Mokuba, he whispered as Pegasus approached to pull the child away.

"Seto, Seto, SETO –"

"I'm right here." He kept assuring, "I'm still right here." Mokuba was ripped violently out of his arms, fingers struggling for tenacity as they still grasped for his shirt, his hands, anything. Even as Pegasus lifted the boy up high against his body and tore him entirely away from Seto, he yelled that he was right there, he would always be right there.

"I want to make this very clear." The elder turned his back to the remaining six and made his way toward a room at the far end of the corridor leading away, "Your hopes, fears, secrets and dreams are mine for the rest of your lives. No matter how much or how little you grow to like me, you will belong to me from this moment forward until the day you die. Every ounce of trepidation and tragedy is mine to discover, one memory at a time." He paused to clutch Mokuba's limp, sobbing form against his chest and shoulder, shushing him tenderly.

"Starting with the baby." He kissed the child's hand, stopping at the furthest possible vantage point from the others and turning again to face them, "I intend to know and mold you, and no matter how much begging you do." His voice rose above the frenzied protests of Kaiba, and of fellow oldest child Joey –

" – I intend to own you."

The monster turned from their sight and carried the youngest off into darkness, soft sobbing carried through the cruel current of an echo long after they had gone.

* * *

_"This is the way the world ends._

_Not with a bang but with a whimper.  
T.S Eliot_


	2. Showing Hands

_**Chapter Two: Showing Hands**_

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Yugioh, nor do I claim rights to any of the affiliated characters. Any brands you may recognize in this chapter do not belong to me, they are the full legal property of their respective owners, who are in no way sponsoring me as an author, or this story, which remains entirely non-profit.

**Warnings/Notes: **Rated for mild profanity, reference to violence and bodily injury, and mind games in general. There is specific mention of vomiting in his chapter, if that is offensive or triggering for you, skip or skim the majority of writing after the third line break (not including the one before the actual story starts.) Be advised that the rating may change as the story progresses.

* * *

The devil moved a lock of matted hair across his cheek, out of his line of vision. On impulse Mokuba squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to breathe. Pegasus smelled faintly of musk and strawberries, his body unusually warm against younger's, which had been deprived of any real heat for days. In the frenzy of being torn from Seto he had barely noticed the ache rising in his bones.

"Let me go." He whispered as his captor pressed him firmly into a Victorian armchair. The child shuddered at his touch, not daring to open his eyes even as he heard muffled footsteps draw the elder a few paces away. Looking into Crawford's eyes was like seeing into his own deepest, most secret thoughts, things he had buried long ago beneath fairytales and funerals.

Pegasus hummed absently as he approached again, "Give me your hands." He instructed sternly, and despite the anxiety mounting in his gut, Mokuba opened one eye first and then the other. The creator's tall frame towered in front of him, unmoving, waiting expectantly for him to wriggle his hands out from under his thighs and present them to be bound.

Cobalt eyes flashed from the rope in his captor's hand to the door he knew set just beyond Pegasus, and with a sudden surge of adrenaline, he threw himself up from the chair, overturning it in his haste, and rammed into the man. "Get away from me!" He cried, rearing back and stumbling passed the chair before taking a chance at outrunning his captor from the left, where the millennium eye had taken over any real vision.

"Ah, ah, ah." Mokuba had expected Pegasus to lunge for him, knee pinning him to the ground on his stomach while hands bent his arms behind his back. But the suited man stood, unfazed, in the center of the room.

Fear had propelled him this far but his hands were failing him now. They fumbled with the doorknob as Pegasus laughed from behind. Out of his peripheral vision, Mokuba watched the man's right hand rise to about ear level, but he was too panicked to worry about what he might be doing. He thrust the door open with trembling fingers and pushed off with one foot into the corridor, where two guards adorned in black suits and sunglasses grabbed him roughly by each arm.

He flailed in their hold, spastic, disoriented by fear and defeat. "Get off me!" He screeched as Pegasus gripped the back of his neck firmly and tossed him back into the chair.

"You really shouldn't have done that." The younger guard had already brought the definitive coarseness of rope against Mokuba's skin when the older, less nimble one began to unravel his length.

"Please!" He begged, "Please help me, please don't do this." They pulled the rope taut against his skin, leaving it red and irritated as he jerked against the arms of the chair in protest.

"Take his shoes off, and his socks." Pegasus instructed, pulling up an executive leather desk chair for himself and crossing his legs complacently, "Now tie his feet together at the ankles." He sipped a glass of wine that sat on the oak table in the room and casually pushed himself forward. With two fingers he motioned the guards to lift Mokuba to the opposite side of him and tuck him in close.

The boy continued to sob loudly, unable to gather any shred of peace. "Shh." Pegasus crooned lowly, taking another taste of wine before propping his elbows on the table and lacing his fingers together, "Listen very closely." He advised, waiting for the boy to meet his eyes, "This is important." Brown met blue, two orbs cutting like the rope that bound his limbs, and Pegasus smiled just a little too sweetly. "Wonderful." Mokuba swallowed thickly, breaths heaving in his chest as he tried to ward off sobs.

He gestured to the guard on either side of Mokuba briefly, "I want the two of you to pay a visit to Mr. Seto Kaiba and give him this," He withdrew a small vial of liquid from his pocket, "from Mokuba."

As the nearly empty room carried Mokuba's screams in endless circles, the two men turned and were gone.

* * *

"You've been with Mr. Crawford a few years, right Makoto?" He braved a glance at his graying companion.

"Yeah." He replied gruffly, "And?"

The younger twirled a loose thread in his pocket around his finger, building his nerve, "How much does he pay you for this?"

The elder stopped a few paces ahead of his partner, pressing the vial into the other's hand and forcibly closing his fingers around it. "Not enough."

* * *

"Hush Mokuba." Until now Pegasus had never called the boy by his name, his intent in doing so was obvious a few moments later, "The more you cooperate the easier you'll make it on your brother."

Across from him Mokuba sucked in a breath and held it, the only defense he could muster against tears swelling inside. "Okay." He mumbled, pursing his lips once the word had left them, as if relaxing might signal the floodgates to open with no way to shut them again.

"I want to play a little game. Now don't get too excited, for you it'll be boring at best, but that's a necessary evil I'm afraid. I'm going to ask you some questions and you're going to answer them." He locked eyes with the other, who met his gaze in fleeting glances.

"Okay…"

"Oh and Mokuba," he paused to swirl the wine around the glass a few times before taking a drink.

"Yes?"

"If you lie, I'll know." The CEO's millennium eye glinted under the direct light fixture overhead. Mokuba nodded in understanding, his fingers flicking nervously against the arm of the chair as he prepared himself to be brave, for Seto.

"What is your name?"

"Mokuba Kaiba."

"How old are you?"

He almost sighed in annoyance, but managed to quell his growing anger, "Eleven."

"Do you make wishes on your birthday candles?"

The younger flushed, looking away sheepishly, "I'm too old for that." He countered.

"That's not what I asked you."

He paused a moment more, his stomach knotting tighter at the man's clipped, even tone, "yes," he admitted.

"Ah, wonderful," his transition from serious to silly was unnerving, Mokuba began to realize even before he continued that something was very _wrong_ with Pegasus Crawford, something very _unstable_ "At least one of you knows the heart of a child." He sipped the wine again, letting it settle on his lips for a moment before opening his mouth to accept the liquid. "Tell me sweetheart –" Mokuba shuddered involuntarily at the pet name, "How much do you hate me?"

They had locked eyes again, Pegasus's gaze fierce and unwavering against Mokuba's timid attempt to focus his attention on a small piece of peeling wallpaper in the corner. He jumped as Pegasus's sudden bout of laughter disturbed the stillness, but did not speak. Being the child of a Kaiba he knew when to bite his tongue, when to wait for the other person to finish even thoughts rather than words. And Pegasus's mind was turning, he could see it in his eyes – _eye_.

"Not ready to answer?" He gave a comical sort of 'hm' at the thought, "No matter, we'll save the best for last." The malice had slithered in and settled across the table again. Mokuba braced himself for the bruising words of a monster, "What is your birth name, Mokuba?"

The child blinked, "I'm not sure what you mean."

"What was your last name at birth, certainly not Kaiba?"

Mokuba sat slack jawed, as if he'd been struck, "I…I don't know."

Pegasus seemed unconvinced for a moment, his brows knitting together in focus, lips pulling together in a tight line across his face, "Really?" He feigned half-interest and pity, "Such a shame." He tutted quietly, wagging a finger at the child before folding his hands in front of him at a more comfortable angle.

Mokuba swallowed his anger, though he wished to know his mother and father outside of pictures; he would not give Pegasus the satisfaction of seeing him break. Instead he relaxed his body into the chair as if it was the most natural position in the world, and smiled.

"Seto tells me about them." Then, to be safe, he added, "sometimes."

Pegasus's confidence did not falter but he seemed genuinely miffed at Mokuba's newly acquired resolve, "Being that you don't know your _real _name," it was a biting, scathing comment, "I don't suppose you can tell me why he stuck with Kaiba Corp?"

Mokuba's smile only broadened as he relayed his brother's lines verbatim, "Recognition is good for business, even if markets have changed expansively, trust in a name is unspoken law among consumers."

Pegasus actually clapped, his demeanor gradually revealing his interest, "That was impressive; you're quite the parrot."

Mokuba bit back a scowl, "I try."

Pegasus almost choked on his own laughter, "_Quite_ the parrot." He repeated, because the irony of Mokuba trying to match Seto's wit was too much, even for him.

"I am not." For a moment Mokuba had to force himself to remember it was not Seto across the table, playing up responsibilities like they were not meant for children.

"Well, prove me wrong." Pegasus tossed his hands out nonchalantly, "_Why_ do people trust the familiar?"

"Because it gives them a sense of sameness with those who've followed the company in years past, it gives them more confidence as a buyer to support a company others have already invested in successfully."

The answer is strikingly businesslike for an eleven year old, he can't help but think, but he is also taken by the philosophical aspect that shows too much introspective to be a product of the elder Kaiba's influence.

"You dislike being compared to your beloved brother?" The question was almost as teasing as the preposterous suggestion it led to.

"I _dislike_ only being seen as a child. I'm the vice president of a multi-million dollar corporation."

Pegasus chuckled, "Don't act so proud, kiddo." He taunted satirically, and for as long a moment as the other would allow, Mokuba avoided his eyes.

"You do realize that one day you'll be more than vice president. Sooner than you think, all of Kaiba Corp will be yours to do with whatever you please."

"If I ever get out of this hellhole." The younger reminded him, a pang of fear immediately filling his stomach in the face of his own audacity.

"Language." Pegasus scolded sternly, taking a long bamboo rod from the floor at his feet and swishing it against the child's bare feet.

"Ah." He cried, curling his toes in protest and wiggling to cope with the sting.

"Now don't throw a tantrum," the CEO paused to bend the rod in his hands, letting to go with a resounding 'thck' against Mokuba's still exposed skin, "I asked you a question."

He whined at the welts forming on the arches of his feet, feeling the full effect of the pain the more he reflexively tensed to ease it, "Of course I realize that…" He was not sure what Pegasus expected him to say.

"How do you feel about it?" He dropped the weapon and leaned into Mokuba, too close for comfort.

"It's a wonderful future." He decided in the moment, "I'll be financially stable, have great connections, I can't see how it would ever be a bad thing."

Pegasus smiled genuinely, reaching out to stroke Mokuba's cheek, running a thumb along his jawline absently, for all his harsh words and technicalities, the answer had shown him exactly what he wanted. Mokuba Kaiba was still a child with innocent, naïve thoughts of the future. Financially stable and socially rewarding, yes, but running a business came with expectations at every turn, sleepless nights of productivity and counter-productivity, isolation, _sacrifice_. He stood to full height, not daring to relay the reality of business in an ever advancing world.

He moved the large wood table back a few feet, with little effort, Mokuba noticed, and walked around it to crouch directly in front of his captive. The child trembled against his hands as they worked at the knotted rope, eventually freeing him from tight confinement to the armchair. Hesitating for a moment, Pegasus looked into his eyes, hand guiding his head upward, holding his gaze. Their breaths mingled, even after all this time, Mokuba's smelled faintly of chocolate.

"I want to go back with Seto." _Please_ lingered in the child's eyes even though his voice had refused to encompass it.

Pegasus remained mostly still. He only moved his free hand to catch Mokuba's chaffing wrists, rubbing them soothingly while forcibly maintaining eye contact. He was relieved to realize that, deep down, Mokuba was still just as much a child as he had first assessed. He reflected briefly on the sharpness of tongue he had no doubt acquired from Seto, and nearly shook his head as he dismissed it from his mind. That trait was still fresh, he could fix it. His thumb stroked the child's cheek again, knowingly. He was so _happy_ he could fix it.

* * *

"You're gonna kill him!" Tristan roared as Yugi offered words of encouragement over the other's voice.

"Take deep breaths." He kept pressing, wringing his hands against the bars.

Kaiba was beyond hearing him. He lurched forward into a rusting metal bucket, nearly spilling the putrid contents at the watchmen's feet. His stomach twisted so violently it solicited a spasm throughout his body, his elbows, once bent to either side of the bucket to support his weight, buckled and sent him fumbling gracelessly to the floor.

It had been forty five agonizing minutes since the two guards had drug him from the solitude of a stone box room and injected the ipecac syrup they failed multiple times to give him by mouth. When they had finished, the younger guard passed each captive three bottles of water and told them to "make it last." The elder, broader man still clutched Kaiba fiercely, pressing bottle after bottle of water into the teen's fingers, which quivered with anger, ordering him to drink.

At first he seemed unaffected and both men began to worry that they had done something wrong. The elder sat stone faced while the younger paced the short length of corridor, cursing under his breath. Their boss had always been a man of few words, they preferred him that way, but it would've been nice to have some clue of what to expect. As soon as the thought had happened upon them, it began.

Kaiba did his best to hide it at first, but there were obvious signs of discomfort. His body would grow suddenly rigid before he could will it to relax. His lips would purse tight, his expression contorting to one of pain and determination. Eventually the vomiting started, a brief, anti-climactic spell that produced no more than bile from the boy's empty stomach. Makoto released the CEO, scowling at the traces of vomit clinging to his pant leg, and quickly instructed his partner to find something to contain the mess.

"You alright?" Joey asked as Kaiba wiped his mouth disgustedly.

"Peachy." He shot back with an annoyed grunt. But his face continued to pale and within a few minutes his body was wracked with tremors. He was too stubborn to the let the puking come and be done with it, too ahead of the game to give Pegasus the satisfaction of a gradual surrender.

When Kyoshi failed to produce the object the elder was looking for, he swiftly moved to aid the search, "Stay with the brat if you can't do your job." He spat as he chanced rounding the corner with Kaiba at his back.

The younger frowned, tossing the object to the ground and standing side by side with the other to obstruct the path to potential freedom. "You think it's poison?"

Makoto sucked his bottom teeth tight against the top, "No." He answered after a silence too long for comfort, "Not his style."

But more than twenty minutes later, with the vomiting fast and frequent, he began to suspect he was wrong. "Jesus." He whispered, his eyes briefly scanning Kyoshi's face, "I think it's gone too far."

Kyoshi shook his head as slightly as possibly, trying to go unnoticed to the group in front of them, who in truth were too preoccupied by worry to care either way, "I don't think it's that serious."

"There's _blood_ in that bucket."

Kyoshi swallowed thickly, concerned but not cunning or bold enough to bother his boss. "Ask him then." Arms still crossed over his chest, he pointed one finger to their uniform shirt pocket, which held a sleek black cell phone.

"You call him." The other countered, "You filled the syringe, you shoved the needle in."

"Couldn't have if hadn't held him down."

He looked from his partner to Kaiba's quickly weakening body, fighting for his nerve, "You gonna let him die like this?"

"If that's what the boss wants." The younger replied, shifting his weight from one foot to the other uncomfortably, "I got mouths to feed."

With one final scan of the room the elder turned his back to the scene and pulled the phone from his pocket, "You were made for this job, kid." And through the haze of anxiety and trepidation, he dialed.

* * *

"What?" He demanded, gripping Mokuba's forearm firmly.

"The kid's vomiting." _Blood_ lingered somewhere in the static of the phone line, but he couldn't bring himself to say it for fear it would anger the man.

Pegasus sensed the room-halting fear of his presence on the other line, but it did not stop his venomous remarks, "Still?" He questioned edgily.

"For almost an hour now, sir."

"You idiot." He spat, "Give him a dose of Benadryl and add peppermint oil to his water. Call me if it doesn't stop." He snapped the phone shut without waiting for a reply, turned to Mokuba, and smiled, "We're gonna have to cut this short, _sweetheart_."

* * *

Medication stopped Kaiba's vomiting shortly after, but Pegasus left Mokuba in a locked room of duel monsters cards for nearly two further hours, taking to his tower in uninterrupted solitude. When at last he retrieved the boy – being sure to check with his guards that Seto was asleep – he was surprised to find him peeling paint off the walls in less-than-artistic shapes.

He led the boy back to the others slowly. It may have served a more immediate purpose to do so when the elder Kaiba was in shambles, sick, heaving, and exhausted, but by now he was becoming _very_ annoyed with the constant yelling of the children. Hushed whispers and the occasional conversational tone he could handle, even enjoy. It was usually plotting or questioning that gave him the delightful thrill of hearing them squirm, imagining their faces and their desperate body language, but for almost two days his peace had been interrupted by their damned _yelling. _The entertaining novelty of it wore off fast.

"You have children Makoto." He left Kyoshi to lock Mokuba's cell and met the other gaze with daunting finality.

"Yes sir."

"Very good." He extended a plastic grocery bag to the other man, "I've decided to tweak your uniforms a bit." He continued, still gripping the handles as Makoto reached for them in confusion. After a moment of them both holding on, he let go. Makoto opened the bag and peered inside, expressionless. Two black leather belts glistened, "Being a father." His employer continued, "I'll expect the changes to aid you in keeping them quiet."

Kyoshi approached the two cautiously, not wanting to intrude but wanting even less to be face to face with the kids pacing quietly in their cells. He tried to avoid eye contact with Pegasus, but as was common with celebrities of his caliber, his energy drew attention almost magnetically.

"Took you long enough." The red suited man quickly inspected his newer employee, "You've got an announcement to make. If the keepsake want food they can eat it at the table like civilized human beings, fully guarded, no tricks." He paused, silently wishing for another glass of wine, "This is an all or nothing effort, dinner will be served on my terms at five thirty tomorrow evening. We can enjoy it together like a perfect little family, or they can have nothing until they gather enough sense to comply."

Yugi, still well within earshot of their conversation, felt he might be sick. Even as Pegasus turned on his heel to quit the room, he realized that this was the first of many battles they would face, even now. He was almost relieved that neither guard made immediate moves to tell the others, he did not have the heart or strength to do so either, not in the moment.

He was reeling from the sudden epiphany even before he met Ryou's knowing eyes, even before he was aware that Bakura had also heard. If they were going to prove they wouldn't back down, as he had so eagerly agreed to hours before, they would find themselves locked in a battle of survival, for food. He punched the wall in frustration, it wasn't much of a battle considering Pegasus would not go hungry.

The next few hours were full of tension and relief. Seto eventually woke to Mokuba, who was virtually unharmed save for his missing shoes and socks, which left him barefoot in the cold. The elder quickly removed his own garments and tossed them as close as he could manage, ordering that the younger take them. At first he stubbornly refused, but upon seeing Seto's usual unwillingness to relent, gratefully accepted them as his own.

"Should we let them do that?" Kyoshi whispered.

Makoto shrugged, "Still leaves one without shoes and one with shoes too big to warm his feet. Seems like a win-win to me." The two men put on their belts and relayed Pegasus's message, not wanting to lose valuable time for the teens to think it over.

Hours of arguing and several "warning snaps" of a belt from Makoto gave way to a final realization among the group of them.

They had two options. They could refuse Pegasus's offer or surrender the battle by accepting it. Ryou argued that persistence would only do _them_ harm, weakening them physically and mentally the longer they went without food. But Seto was not the only one discontented with the idea of submitting so easily to the first stages of ownership Pegasus mentioned earlier.

As tradition would have it, it was Yugi who spoke the sickening, deciding truth.

They could deny the first offer, and the start of the first 'battle for control,' but sooner or later they had to eat.

Eventually, no matter how much they objected, Pegasus would get what he wanted.

* * *

_"Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well."  
Robert Louis Stevenson_

* * *

Additional Notes: Reviews are greatly appreciated. The most frustrating part of this writing process is finding varying terms to refer to men. There are seven "main-ish" characters of male anatomy. SEVEN. (not to mention the primarily male supporting characters...) "He" just isn't going to cut it for this story lol. Anyway, thank you for reading.


	3. Obstacles

Disclaimer: I do not own Yugioh, nor do I claim rights to any of the affiliated characters.

Warnings/Notes: Italic words in conversation are for emphasis, italic words outside of quotation marks are thoughts. Rated for profanity, reference to violence and bodily injury, as well as mind games in general. As noted before, rating may change as the story progresses. For future reference, any specifically sensitive material will be listed here first. This chapter has no further content of that nature.

* * *

**_Chapter Three: Obstacles _**

* * *

Time rushed on, piercing and candid. There was not so much as a window to let in sunlight, and though their captivity had happened in a few short days, it already hung like eternity around their aching limbs.

"This is suicide." Kaiba pressed.

"So is starvation." Joey countered, numbness had begun to settle in his legs from sitting so long on cold stone, it was either that or pace the cell in maddening repetition, trying to track minutes with footsteps.

"Do you want to be a fucking zombie?" The CEO snapped. Thoroughly accustomed to the distinct isolation of business, it was not confinement but helplessness that had begun to wear on him.

"Quit bein' dramatic, would ya?" Strong fingers drove unnatural part-lines into his blonde hair, "I need out just as bad as you." Breath sunk low and tight in his chest, "I got a sister back home struggling to be strong for her mother, I can't go dyin' a martyr in some whack-job's basement."

"We just need time to figure a way out of here." Kaiba's voice dropped to a low pitch that crawled across the stone-brick creases in the walls. Both Kyoshi and Makoto were asleep in their seats, the younger snoring quietly with one hand plastered to the pistol in his right pocket. Still, they had to be careful. "This is the worst thing we could possibly do. If we give him what he wants it's only going to escalate."

"This is Pegasus not Gandhi." Yugi reminded the brunet, "Things will escalate no matter what we do, the only difference is how much we suffer along the way."

"So you're saying we should trust this lunatic not to spike the food?" A hand unconsciously moved to rest on his stomach, which still churned in protest of the past night's abuse, but he willed himself to be still. "We've determined this whole thing is a power play and you idiots want to sit down to dinner with someone who just shot me up with god-knows-what? Going up there means an endless cycle of drugs to induce sickness and drugs to stop sickness until we're too stupid from exhaustion or damaged from exertion to fight back."

"He only did that to you because I tried to get away." Mokuba bit back the tears that welled behind his eyes, "He made an example out of you for when we do go up there on open ground."

"Regardless –"

"_Not_ regardless." Tristan interjected, "If Pegasus wanted us dead he could've done it a long time ago and avoided a lot of headache and speculation. From what Mokuba says we have more reason to believe not going along with this makes it harder on everyone."

Seto's shoulders tensed, his posture straight and proper with the aura of high society men. His heart beat loud and strong in his ears, leaving a building heat in his veins, "_Fine_." He spit before he could force himself to be collected, "But don't forget that as of right now we're on the losing end of the game."

Bakura's eyes came dangerously alive at the thought, "Maybe we just forgot how to play."

Makoto stirred, sucking in too deep a breath and clearing his throat uncomfortably before settling back into his previous position on the chair. Head in hand, eyes closed heavily behind his sunglasses. In a few moments, if they were quiet enough, he would be asleep again.

"We don't have to give him everything." He continued in a whisper, "We just have to make him think we're doing what he wants. If we can get inside his head before the reverse happens to us, the least it'll earn us is a trump card."

"How do you expect us to deceive a mind reader?" Tristan inquired. Kaiba opened his mouth to reply that Pegasus was merely a cheat, but instead ran a finger along the cool floor, tracing the letters of Mokuba's name in neat, invisible lines.

"Yugi managed it in his duel, didn't he?" Ryou looked directly across the corridor into Yugi's cell. The smaller boy was on his side, palm flat against his cheek as a cushion.

"With my millennium puzzle and the spirit inside," he reminded the other, "But my puzzle's gone now. It's true that you and the others pushed him out for a little while, but if he keeps us worn down like this, I don't know if…"

"Don't think that way." Tea cut in, "It worked before and it'll work again." She swallowed a tiny sip of water from the newly opened second bottle, letting the coolness spill across her like autumn rain, leaving a shiver stuck somewhere between her neck and spine.

"It's the best chance we've got." Joey agreed.

"What'd you say Kaiba?" Yugi asked, pushing himself into a sitting position, "No matter the extent you participate, if your mind is vulnerable he will invade it, and we'll lose everything."

He looked to his little brother, imagining the small body that used to curl definitively against the edges of his thinning frame, a sticky heat wave against him in the night, "What do you think, Mokuba?"

It felt almost like betraying Seto to take their side, but in truth he was desperate for any glimpse of the outside world, "It's something at least."

Seto cleared his throat quietly, "Well, it's practically unanimous." He resisted the urge to roll his eyes, keeping them trained on Mokuba and the dirt at his hairline, "What do we have to do?"

"Unfortunately someone has to be the guinea pig, it would be too obvious if we all started in at once, and even now I'm not talking about doting on him. We just need the most believable person to maintain complete civility, never raise your voice, occasionally meet his eyes, do things that lead him to believe he's gaining your trust."

"Pegasus is a natural sneak." Kaiba reminded the other, "As much as I hate to admit it, he's perceptive even without that damn eye, he'll catch on right away."

"It's fine if he's suspicious of the behavior, he just can't guess the real reason behind it. That's why the only person who can pull this off…is Yugi."

"Me?" He blurted out, hands immediately rising to cover his mouth at the loudness of his own voice, "What the hell?"

"We're all too obviously distrusting of him to test the waters. I hate to use this as leverage, but with your grandfather still hidden away somewhere, you're the only one with a plausible motive for feigning trust or trying to establish it. Otherwise he'll be onto us."

Violet eyes swam with thoughts, pondering this for a long moment, "I don't understand." He admitted at last, "I should distrust him the most being that he has my grandpa."

"No, no." Bakura replied, "You just have to give him enough reason to believe that you're trying to get on his good side for your grandfather's sake. You're not going to make yourself obvious, like I said before; you don't have to dote on him,"

The plan took its shape, "I see." Yugi mused, browns knitting together in contemplation, "And once that's happened?"

"Then the rest of us slowly start to follow your lead, we'll have to work out the order so it seems like you convinced us to do it. Then things can only escalate in our favor."

This time it was Tristan who spoke up, clearly skeptical. Though he didn't get the feeling the spirit of the ring was around, he knew better than to trust Bakura completely without being able to guarantee the absence of the demonic presence, "How does this benefit us?"

"Look, the only thing we've got going for us is the fact that Pegasus is a complete narcissist, if we can pull this off so he thinks he's got us under his spell, he'll get cocky like always, and slip up. If he thinks we're submitting because Yugi's grandpa is his ace in the hole, he'll still exploit our submission for his own gain, expanding on it with whatever mind game he has planned for our ultimate end anyway. If my suspicion is right, and he plans to keep us as trophies, he'll lead us into trusting him implicitly, needing him, fawning over him, and once we've reached that point we'll just have to hope the trust he puts in us is equal to the trust we're supposedly being manipulated into giving him."

"And?" Kaiba pressed, still unconvinced.

"The other pro to narcissism, in this case, is that he won't want to keep us a secret once he's made us into puppets. He'll want to show us off, even if it's just to the help. We won't be in a dungeon forever and he's already made that clear with the invitation to the dining hall." He paused to move closer to the edge of his cell, "What we're after is a chance. A door, a window, a moment of indiscretion, because deep down Pegasus is only human, and I don't know about you, but I don't care who's fucking island it is, if I get outside these walls I'm going home. It just takes one of us to blow this out of the water."

"What are the chances _all_ of us will escape? If he catches us after something like that..." Tristan trailed off, unable to think about the possible consequences.

"We take that risk no matter what. It's better to face him with a plan than with nothing. If we stay strong together, if we honestly commit to an all-or-none effort, we have the best chance of getting out of here alive."

Thoughts of the apparition practically prying Mokuba's body from his chest had planted deep seeds of doubt in Tristan, he was half afraid Bakura would make them pawns in a losing game to get himself to safety…and then what would they do? Either way, they were at the mercy of someone he dared not test alone. For all his suspicions and apprehension, he knew this was an inevitable risk, but Bakura had to be watched. Closely.

"Are we starting tonight?" Yugi asked, his voice trembling with uncertainty.

"The sooner the better if you think you can manage it."

The smaller boy nodded and moved to lay down again, this time on his back. "I need a few hours to get my mind straight but don't worry, I'll be ready." The rest of the room came alive with the hum of movement and voices; he pressed both hands over his ears and tried to block out the world.

* * *

At four thirty there was a guard for each of them. Phantoms aligning the cells with hardened faces and brass keys tucked away deeply in pockets. In pairs they led them away from the prison-like abode, Kaiba counted the steps down every corridor, memorizing the turns in the path to freedom. Ahead of him, he knew it was all Joey could do to keep himself from tearing away and making a mad dash for the exit.

His eyes drifted momentarily to his brother, he was dirty and his clothes hung awkwardly on his small frame, too big across his chest and thighs. Somewhere in him he felt a tugging sense of anxiety and compassion for the blonde that led his way into the dining hall. He had heard brief mentions of an operation, of savable eyesight with the correct doctors and deadlines…but he couldn't trouble himself with that now. If there was one thing he knew of the Motou clan, aside from their annoying sense of empathy, it was their loyalty to one another. The plan had been made between friends, there was no question Joey would uphold it.

He kept his eyes trained straight ahead as he was corralled into a seat beside Tristan and across from Mokuba. It was all he could do to distract himself from Pegasus's cherry wood gaze at the head of the table.

"Good _evening_." Tea folded her hands in her lap to keep from shivering at the sound of his voice. "Come now, such honored guests mustn't be quiet at the dinner table." He scanned the group of them menacingly as servers adjusted their empty place settings. "In any case you're all a bit early, I think a party game is in order." He clapped his hands in apparent delight, "How long do we have dear?" He had stopped a young maid, who smiled pleasantly down at him, ignoring the madness of circumstance.

"About forty five minutes sir."

"Perfect! We can get straight to business." He paused for a drink, "I'd offer, but you're all a bit _young_ for that." They sat unmoving, the plan dictated civility, some level of mutual conversation, but Yugi was quickly beginning to realize that pleasantries were not as easily offered as they were planned.

His eyes focused so acutely on the scenery through the window he thought he caught the coolness of a breeze somewhere above and behind him. The sun was low on the horizon, casting trails of orange and maroon through the darkening sky. He could feel the distinct dampness of air after autumn rain against his body, clinging like a second skin to his neck and shoulders. There were guards against the wall to either side of the four floor length portals to the outside world, but even still he wanted nothing more than to leap through them, not to escape – not without grandpa, just to soak up the life outside the smothering walls of Duelist Kingdom.

"Yugi-boy." Pegasus drawled in thick American accent, grating elongated vowels that made the teen practically ooze disgust. "It's not polite to daydream." He offered once the younger had chanced a look in his direction. For a moment the strong gaze left him paralyzed, breath catching in his throat as he pondered the irreversible damage done in carelessness.

He broke away, stealing a sideways glance at Seto, whose cold thoughts were screaming, _you're screwing this up already. _

"You're right." He said at last, narrowing his eyes to the pristine white plate in front of him, counting the utensils on either side.

"Then why the appalling display, kiddo?"

Yugi tried to stay focused, scrambling for an excuse before settling on a certain degree of honesty to quell suspicion, "I was thinking about the weather. It's not as warm as Japan in September."

"October." The elder corrected with another sip of wine, curiously inspecting the violet eyed boy.

He didn't know how to respond, he kept his attention on the plate in front of him, entirely smooth, seemingly never touched by silverware let alone food. _Focus. _He kept telling himself, but he was already feeling trapped, and he couldn't do this, he couldn't do this, he _couldn't_ –

"And what do you do in warm weather."

"Go to the beach?" Yugi replied questioningly, unsure of how to answer.

"No." Pegasus's fierce look pulled his eyes away from the silent refuge of oblivion, "Not what tourists do, what you do, specifically."

The smell of browned meat temporarily ensnared him; the plate had been filled almost the second he had taken his eyes off of it, pasta with chicken and spinach, artisan bread and enough fruit juice to get sick on. His mouth watered in growing anticipation of the feast.

"I would just be with my friends." He forced himself to answer, using every ounce of self-control not to reach for the (wrong) fork and stab it down into the noodles, "I remember once when I was very young my mother took me to the park for a whole afternoon and taught me to catch a baseball." He smiled at the thought of the warm morning, bright enough to leave him blinking against the light as he searched, squinting and scrambling for the ball. He laughed softly, "That's one of my earliest memories with her. I hadn't thought about it for a long time."

Beside him Bakura almost cheered with happiness, everything was going perfectly, the conversation was rough at first but effortlessly casual now, no doubt helped along by memories that came without having to think. It was always more natural when he didn't have to coax himself to hold a topic. The happiness was painfully short-lived; however, as something in their host had changed almost immediately.

His gaze had darkened, vice grip threatening to snap the stem of his outlandishly expensive wine glass. The tension was so thick it was suffocating; panic overwhelmed them one by one as he sat in silent rage at the head of the table. There was no telling what had set him off, but they half expected him to yank the table cloth violently forward, sending china crashing to the floor in a mess of steaming alfredo sauce.

"Eat!" He spat, throwing down the napkin he had folded on his lap and disgustedly sweeping out of the room.

Yugi paled gravely. Though the food had tempted him so thoroughly just moments before, he was too sick to think of touching it, "I didn't mean it." He murmured. Listless eyes had pooled with tears, and he blinked, eyelids crushing together in defeat as his face contorted to stifle the sob.

"Should we…do something?" He heard a gruff voice ask to his left.

_I didn't mean it!_

"He told them to eat." The other said sternly, Joey recognized that voice as Croquet's.

_Grandpa, I'm so sorry. Now everything is…now…everything is…_ The sob cracked out into the silence surrounding the table.

_Ruined._

* * *

A ballad of shattered glass rang out through the master suit, "Damn it!" His arm jerked spastically, books on the dresser crashing to the floor amidst fragments of an antique vase. His breaths came in short, violent tremors to match the shaking of his limbs, his blood pressure soaring as he ground glass into carpet fibers. A picture frame collided with the wall, chipping the fern paint. Eventually his body began to feel the effects of exertion and he collapsed, still shaking viciously, onto the soft comforter of his bed.

"No." He moaned out into the stillness, chest heaving and throat burning with short, quick breaths of air. "No, no, no…" Both hands rose to his face, trying to make this real. As he adjusted to the rhythm of his gradually slowing respiration, the tremors dulled into tiny feverish whispers beneath his skin.

_How could I have missed this…how could I not have foreseen it? _He practically choked on the irony. The one detail most essential to the plan had evaded even the millennium eye he cherished so deeply. The duelists had not simply been created from thin air, but still…he had focused too heavily on the Kaibas, whose only glimpse of family was an abusive stepfather and the fading figments of birth parents they were too young to remember having. And Yugi…Yugi lived with his grandfather in a shack…he had never seen any glimpse of a woman in the boy's mind or memories. Joseph…he had an incubator, he did not live with her, did not know her, did not know how to care for her outside of society's dictated loyalty to family. The relationship had never been nurtured, it was not a problem.

He let out a low groan of fury at the completely innocent, unspoken detail he could never have prepared himself for. There was a violent, mocking thump in his head and he almost ripped the cursed eye from his skull in protest of the horrible injustice of it all. Even if it had been Tea or Bakura who posed the problem, it was an easy fix. They were passionately emotional like most people their age, but relatively flat, even moldable in that regard. They were bleeding hearts who enveloped everyone with the same trust and compassion, not a stitch hardened or selective. But Yugi? The fiercely loyal, once bullied natural recluse, he would not be so easily persuaded to accept the most inevitable factor of all.

He rose from the bed to collect the picture, the supporting piece on the back had snapped and lay ignored against the engraved floor molding. His lips fluttered against the broken glass obscuring her face, pressing their warmth to the softness of her honeycomb curls.

"I've fumbled darling." He murmured darkly, removing the picture from the frame and placing it in the corner of his mirror, "It doesn't matter if they never see me the way we imagined." He continued, pacing the length of the oak chest of drawers, fingers trailing its edge as he walked, up and back, up and back. "But everything has to be perfect for you; you shouldn't have a flicker of reservation in all this, no worry, not a single second thought." He brushed his silver hair out of his face for a moment, caressing the metal that had replaced flesh, "This means I have to wait longer to have you back with me." His voice broke, hand wiping tears from his line of vision before they had the chance to leave trails against his skin, "But when we are reunited at last, you will not have to fight a moment for the adoration you deserve. By the time I have all I need; you will be the only woman for that role."

He moved to the door, turning one last time, now to address her portrait above his bed, "Forgive me love." He implored, the handle turning to signal his leave, "They were not supposed to have mothers."

* * *

Several employees lurked as he left his bedroom, "Clean the mess." He ordered, descending the stairs to the main level and heading straight for the dining hall. The dead silence of the room unnerved him as he approached, "So help me – " He began to fume, but before he could finish, it struck him.

Yugi Motou was _sobbing_. Not sniffling, not crying softly into a napkin, but sobbing hysterically with his face in his hands to disguise the tears. His body shook as he wailed. The ugly, sickening sound pulled at the deepest fathoms of Pegasus's heart. This was not ordinary fear or frustration, but utter despair. The master of estate stood in awe, entirely deflated by the spectacle. The child's agony had pacified any anger that before had been silently coaxing him to leave them all to rot and start over new.

"Yugi-boy." He sang, fingers around the back of his chair, "_Whatever_ is the matter?"

The rest of the group, who had no doubt been forced to ignore the other's breakdown, fixed their anger on the host, almost daring him to make a move. Yugi started a bit at the close proximity, but did little more to acknowledge him.

"Stop your crying." Then, savagely, "what would your mother say?" Kyoshi began to approach from the side opposite Yugi, seeing the boy's continued antics as defiance. Every hired man in the room knew this was a mistake, "You stay out of this, you're just here as a body; until and unless I tell you to do something, stand in the corner and stare at the ground like the dog you are. You fucking coward."

The room was immobilized by both fear and fascination. Pegasus knew talking to Yugi would do no good; wordlessly he pulled the boy's chair back from the table and began to probe his mind. Thoughts were no less muddled than words, he realized. A swarm of images attacked him at once, the boy's mother playing with him as an infant, a soundless laugh, needles, and vomiting, and shrieking toddlers. Wrinkled hands helping him to walk, guiding an emaciated body onto a baseball field, clutching a ball against its hand to toss to Yugi. A real laugh this time. A child's.

A dugout. Curious eyes. Needle, vein, high, the nagging voice of the grandfather at his back, guilt and resentment, and then a grave – a grave – a _grave_. He all but crumpled to his knees, arms surrounding Yugi in a rush of relief as the others watched in horror and confusion. At the gesture, a small sense of hope stirred inside Yugi too.

"Hush."

He moved his hands from his face, only to have his gaze travel instinctively downward to the red suited shoulder his chin was pressed against and resting on. Pegasus was _holding_ him, _comforting_ him, and he let slip a wonderfully dangerous thought, _this is not the end._

"That's it." The elder encouraged, rubbing his back in slow, soothing circles, "You really are a stubborn one, aren't you?" He continued, "I _told_ you to eat."

Relief was flooding and sweet, there was still hope for grandpa, still hope for all of them. He laughed, "I'm sorry."

Pegasus pressed a kiss against the blonde hairline, holding it there for a fleeting moment as he too came to his senses. "Eat your supper." He instructed sternly, moving to his spot at the head of the table, "I'm sure the boys would hate to tuck you in on empty stomachs." He tossed the men in question a new ring of keys, and turned his attention to his plate.

Joey reminded himself how important it was that neither side forget the glaring motives of the other. No matter how convincing Pegasus's actions became, they were still only compassionate in the sense of being temporarily devoid their usual malice. This was not, and would never be kindness for the sake of being kind. The last inkling of fairness in the game relied on the instinct of playing to win. If even one of them fell victim to the charade, the fortress they had scrounged in togetherness would cave in on them, wilting in the creator's fingers until it crumbled. While Tea and Tristan rejoiced at being granted reprieve from the dungeon so soon, he, Seto, and Bakura worried that what awaited them behind new doors may be unspeakably worse.

Aside from even that, Joey could not help but grapple with the fact that the gleam in Pegasus's eye during Yugi's hysteria looked strangely like…_bliss_.

* * *

Additional Notes: I am not too familiar with the Yugioh manga; as such I don't know anything about Yugi's mother. He drug-addicted past is not meant to be canon, just as the premise of this story is not meant to be canon. Thank you for reading, feel free to rant, review, etc.


	4. Unraveled

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Yugioh, nor do I claim rights to any of the affiliated characters.

**Warnings/Notes:** The warnings from chapters 1-3 will continue to apply; if you've made it this far I'm grateful to assume you can handle the ride. A huge **thank ****you** to everyone who has reviewed this story. If you ever have questions, feel free to PM me or I will discuss them at the end of the next chapter for those who don't feel comfortable making an account. Thank you for discussing chapter three amongst yourselves, I'm glad it became clearer afterwards. I hope you enjoy the chapter.

* * *

_**Chapter Four: Unraveled**_

* * *

The elder lay on his back against musky sheets, beside him the younger was on his stomach, face buried in the crook of Seto's neck. With his left hand, Seto moved to stroke the child's raven hair, hoping to stop his tremors and pacify the small mind into sleep. He could feel the gentle rhythm of breaths rising and falling in quick succession, vibrating like a heartbeat against his own chest. Every so often Mokuba would fidget restlessly, hands fluttering as they struggled to drape themselves comfortably over Seto's body, allowing for the closeness he desperately missed from home.

"Easy." The rasping voice chided, hand still gently stroking his hair, coaxing him into complacency. "I'm right here." He could feel Mokuba smile against his collarbone, muscles loosening at the sound of his brother's voice.

"Something's not right Seto." He murmured as the elder persisted to hold him close, hand sweeping waves of peace along his forehead and back through his messy hair, along his neck.

"Don't you forget little brother; I won't let anyone hurt you again." The monotone to other ears was sincere and tranquil to Mokuba, he pressed his eyelids closed, letting the sound blanket him in serenity against the ominous silence of night.

"Something happened here." He pressed once more, the haze of sleep creeping into his limbs, making them heavy and dull.

"Nonsense," the elder replied, "what happened earlier is troubling you; it's in the past now, let me worry with it."

Mokuba wanted to argue, but sleep was so tempting and so close, cradling him in a muffled barrier of dreams and reality. His brother's voice was a distant whisper propelling him into slumber, where there was no silent, unfamiliar room, no monster clothed in red to tear Seto away whenever the desire came…. When the respiration became deep and leisurely against Seto's chest, an instinct from their orphanage days surrounded him, and he began to shush tenderly until the boy was sleeping soundly against his body.

Though he had not said so for fear of troubling Mokuba, he was beginning to think that something about their room was _off_. The right wing of Pegasus's castle was, in and of itself, more curse than blessing. The walls were thin and unforgiving, the group separated in rooms down a hall from one another, mostly in pairs. Communicating as a whole was essentially impossible, and though they had such luxuries as decent beds and bathrooms, there was not a single window to the outside world, in their rooms or outside of them. It was as if they were in the middle of a funhouse, not truly on one side of the castle, but sandwiched somewhere in the odd dimension of decay.

The young CEO was not easily unnerved, but he hated himself for not anticipating the basic principle of divide and conquer before it was too late. He was glad to have Mokuba where he could protect him with his whole life, but being cut off from the others at this early stage left a nagging pull of fear in his gut. He sighed, trying to keep as still as possible to avoid disturbing Mokuba, who had been especially on edge since the change in accommodation. Seto didn't necessarily blame him for his uneasiness, even he felt paranoid after the charade at the dinner table, but it upset him that Mokuba's concern was genuinely not of Pegasus, but something else altogether.

He closed his eyes, feeling the goose bumps start to prickle along his arms as a sudden chill spilled through the room. "Seto please don't, I'm tired." The younger mumbled, nuzzling his head against Seto's neck and stretching his thin legs.

The elder narrowed his gaze suspiciously, "What are you on about?" He asked, hand automatically stroking Mokuba's scalp.

Giggles tickled Seto's skin, his brother's warm lips reverberating against him as he clamped his mouth shut in laughter, trying to preserve as much of sleep's weighty haze as possible. "You're rubbing my feet." He said at last, "I know they're cold but I'm ticklish there, and I'm too lazy to put your socks back on."

"Mokuba, I'm not – " A shiver tore through him before he could finish, his body shooting gracelessly upright to examine their surroundings. He moved his feet along the edge of the bed, feeling for any small creature, eyes scanning for a person or an unforeseen entry to their room.

"What's the matter?" Position disturbed, Mokuba sat up and rubbed sleepily at his eyes.

"Nothing." Seto replied dryly, willing his breaths to be even and slow, "Go back to sleep." He encouraged, taking the boy back in his arms and guiding both of their forms under the covers. The younger was too tired to think more of it, but Seto lay awake that night trying not to tremble. Opening his mouth to call Mokuba crazy, he felt the definitive contact of skin against skin, a soft, playful caress of his feet.

As Mokuba fell deeper and deeper into sleep, Seto closed his eyes to try and relax, head racing with thoughts of Pegasus's latest tricks to incite madness. In the frenzy, he thought he felt someone ruffle his hair the way his birthmother used to when he was a baby, but he could see and hear no one in the blackness of the room.

Eventually he dozed, mind whirring with pictures of age-old technology. He imagined Pegasus, the handler, sitting in a room of small television monitors linked to security cameras, watching their every paranoid movie, using some cheap form of illusion to project a woman's whispers through the walls.

* * *

At sunrise the tension of solitude was replaced by raw anxiety. "Shower and redress," the guards prompted. Each pair quarreled briefly; neither wanting to take the first shower from the other, save for Tea who was alone.

As Yugi grabbed clean clothes from the dresser, Joey waited awkwardly for the pair of goons to leave. The maid he could handle, he was a lanky, harmless looking creature, who may have been attractive if his taste ran toward men. The guards were a different story, he had expected them to give orders and leave, but it would not be the case. They stood on either side of the conjoined bathroom door, silent reminders of their employer's complete authority.

When desperation struck and he was aching to ease his nausea, he slid a yellow tri-fold wallet from the pocket of his jeans, "My sister turns fourteen next month." He began, taking her picture into his hand, "Our parents split when we were young but even still she's –"

The guard to his right held up a hand, using the other to adjust his shades, "Listen kid." He sounded strained and tired, "It's easier for everyone involved if you don't do this. No matter who you've got waitin' on ya, I've got mouths to feed. If you're asking me to pick between yours and mine, the answer is mine. Every time."

He spent the next ten minutes trying to keep busy enough to forget the conversation, but found himself wallowing, sliding a finger along soap scum to avoid turning off the water. He would face the guards, he told himself, because there was no other choice. As he dried off and dressed, the thought expanded. They would get off this damned island, he told himself, because there was no other choice. He would see Serenity, and Serenity would see him, too, no matter what he had to do.

The tiny murmured thought was becoming a roar among them, a triumphant chorus of hope that reiterated: _this is not the end_.

As time began to take its usual shape in digital clocks on end tables, they were ushered to the breakfast table where they realized, with great, silent dread, that their host was nowhere to be seen. Still heavily guarded, there was no way to talk amongst themselves without being overheard, making the reprieve of his presence little more than an unnerving testament of the previous night.

"Sleep well." Kaiba mocked, reaching unabashedly for the coffee pot and filling a mug.

To his left Tea shifted in her seat, letting a small groan escape her lips, "I had some weird dream." She spoke at least, relieved that Pegasus was not there to inquire further as to what she meant.

"About?" Tristan asked, settling more comfortably into his seat. Tea resisted the urge to slap him, still unnerved by the experience and unwilling to fully relive it.

"It was probably nothing." She prefaced, "I kept hearing a woman humming just above me, like she was sitting at the head of the bed. I thought at first that someone had come to clean the room, look in on me or something…but it was empty. It took a while to realize I was dreaming."

_You weren't. _Kaiba thought to say, ready to put Pegasus on blast for his shameless tricks, but Mokuba seemed to have forgotten the episode and he was hard pressed to trigger the memory.

"I heard it too." Yugi piped up from across the table, "I thought it was someone walking the halls."

"Everyone keep your heads." Ryou urged a bit timidly, "What we heard was probably the wind, that part of the castle's ancient anyway."

Kaiba opened his mouth to protest the dismissal of Crawford's involvement, but Croquet broke the silence before he got the chance, "Eat." The graying head of security demanded, "Now."

None of them had any appetite to face the extravagant buffet-style breakfast. To appease the nagging guards, each took bits and pieces and forced them down with milk, tea, and coffee. Even Joey and Tristan stuck with bits of toast or croissant, chasing the dryness with fruit and drink. Seto had little more than coffee, but at least split a bagel with Mokuba, while Tea took a lone apple and chewed each small bite longer than was necessary for anyone.

"Take my word for it," Croquet called from his perch beside the windows, causing nearly all of them to jump, "You don't want to make him angry this early in the morning. Eat like you know how." The boys poked around at the eggs on their plates, Mokuba and Joey taking a few bites while the others pushed them around to arrange it so it looked like they'd eaten more. "You too." He ordered Tea, who paid him little mind.

"I'm not hungry." She replied dismissively, napkin folded neatly in her lap, "I never eat much in the morning."

Croquet opened his mouth to argue but promptly clamped it shut, these brats weren't his problem. He had to draw the line somewhere, and if Pegasus wanted the nuisances under foot, he could be the one to act as keeper, "Suit yourself." He managed at last, and for several long moments they did just that, sitting in blissful stillness among their inner thoughts.

"Good morning!" Pegasus gushed as he swept casually into the room, straight and exceptionally tall as his posture always dictated, "I know you missed me terribly but try to console yourselves." He tucked himself in to the usual spot at the head of the table, "I'm here now."

He began to serve himself, paying little attention to the inner anxieties attacking him from all sides, they had been a constant force in the group since their captivity, he hadn't expected it to change in one night. "What's this?" He inquired, turning to face the guards, "Croquet, why haven't they eaten properly?"

_Ask them. _He thought scathingly, but bit his tongue, "I pushed them to, sir. I doubt they're feeling up to it."

The elder clicked his tongue, a flash of irritation stirring in his redwood iris, "Honestly, do you people _live_ to see me disappointed? I told you to feed them and you've let them make their make a fool of you, you with a full array of weaponry and an army compared to their number." He took a bite of poached egg and bleu cheese, chewing tauntingly as he cast his gaze on the guests, "And what about the rest of you?" His tones had their usual satiric undertone back, "You have _one_ job."

"W-well sir, it's like Croquet said, they're just not feeling up to it." Kyoshi sputtered, jabbing a finger at Tea before adding, "She never eats much in the morning."

"Oh is that _so_?" He drawled, following his employee's finger to the brunette and locking eyes with her dangerously, "Let me be frank, Kyoshi. I don't care if she tells you that eating is going to make her vomit violently for the rest of the afternoon, it's been cooked, it's been served, and she's going to eat it." Though seemingly addressing the man's incompetence, his gaze had never left her. The speech incited a challenge to test his authority, and her eyes held his own as if to do so.

"I'm not hungry." She repeated with a shrug, "I know it's not very healthy but I've never been able to make myself eat breakfast in the morning." She tried to make it a joke by admitting fault.

He was far from laughing, "Until now." He took another bite, eyes traveling from her face to her plate. _That's what you think. _The millennium eye glowed momentarily as he caught the passing thought, rising from his seat abruptly and jerking her from the table by her arm, "I think someone needs to take a time out." He sang, painful grip leaving marks on her shoulders as he steered her into the dining room corner.

"Listen – " Tea began, adrenaline forcing her to be bold.

He shook her violently, she closed her eyes expecting to make contact with the wall, but he pulled her back…he…pulled her back, "Mattea Rose, if you're going to throw a fit you can just stand in the corner until you decide to come to your senses. All damn day for all I care." Anger flared across his features as he slammed back into his seat, picking up a fork to resume the meal, "Everyone else eat, right now."

He met their initial hesitance with a hardened look, startling them into submission. His own hand shook as he tried to enjoy the meal, both frustrated with her stubbornness and uneasy at the thought of having shown too much of his hand. They couldn't know what he had planned…but the looks of disgust on their faces…the thoughts of abrasiveness clinging to their minds. He chewed savagely, trying to sort through the madness in his own head while thanking the gods that "Crawford" had not forced itself from his lips at the mention of her full name.

He kept envisioning the fierce cerulean gaze, eyes that nearly melted his resolve until he turned her back to him, toward the corner. So much like _hers_, so much like _theirs_ could have been. It was gradual, but he could feel himself losing his grip and knew he had to pull it back.

"Since you all seem to be going through a rare period of indigestion," He paused to wipe his mouth with a napkin, "you can go back to your rooms and stay in bed until dinner."

The guards moved to collect them, a chaotic orchestra of rustling fabric and stiff bodies marching against one another, "So that's it?" The thought of further isolation, and the inability to talk collectively about the plan and its progression, had weighed on Joey so much that the words came spewing out before he could stop them, "We're not dogs, we can't just eat and sleep all day for the rest of our lives!"

Pegasus rose like canon fire across a battlefield, ruthless and deafening, "You will do exactly as I say, exactly when I tell you to, no matter how much training it takes." He turned his attention to Kemo at his back, "Leave her where she is, if she wants to eat breakfast she can sit down to it before going back to her room. If she wants to stand there until dinner is served, so be it."

"Sir what if – "

"Don't bother me with trivial things." He snapped, "If she fights, beat her, if she kicks, and screams, and bites, beat her. She is going to stand there until she learns to do as she's told." He clenched a fist to quell the heat building in his stomach.

"So we do what you want." Seto jabbed an arm into his ribs to try and quiet the blond, but he was beyond stopping now. The need to see his sister, and the chances slipping away one by one were enough to ravish the caution out of him, "Say we become fucking zombies. Sit at the table, cross our ankles, eat our breakfast. What is this supposed to lead to? Jesus Christ you're a CEO, where are you gonna hide us during corporate meetings, duelist tournaments – "

"Enough Joseph." His voice darkened in warning.

"No, I want to know. Where are you gonna tell the press we skipped off to all together in perfect harmony? Do you think they won't ask about Kaiba, Yugi? I have a family, don't you know what family is? I have a sister sitting a hospital needing me right now, do you know what that's like?" His voice was a rasp of tears and pain, he swallowed thickly, nostrils flaring as he forced himself to take deep breaths.

Beside him Seto was fighting to suppress his own anger. A man of business, he knew rising to these occasions was exactly what Pegasus wanted, pathetic pity-plays like these gave him the sense of complete and utter control. Very few things were obvious in the corporate world, but when an opponent resorted to shouting and emotional blackmail, the game was over. You might as well hand the listener his trophy.

Pegasus laughed throatily, "Little Joseph's tired, how cute." He mused, "Someone put him to bed before he throws himself on the floor in protest. Well, if he did that I suppose you could drag him off anyway." The words were alive with laughter and mockery, because he had won. It was as good as surrender. He did need a millennium item to counter these moves, all he needed was handsomely paid staff and, he liked to think, the patience of a saint.

"If you would just tell us…if we could just talk about this." Yugi had to forcefully correct himself to abide by the plan, "We could work something out. Please, if you let us go you have our word we won't say anything, you can keep the puzzle, you can…" Kaiba's icy glance over the shoulder stopped the smaller boy dead in his tracks. Cold thoughts screaming _don't bargain with him. _

"Oh Yugi-boy, it was never about your silly puzzle, and as sweet an offer as it is, being that you'd give me your most prized possession, you seem to forget that I already have it." Cruel laughter filled the space between them, carried on the echo of the dining hall, "Get a move on." He ordered the guards, and with that, followed on their heels to the right wing of the castle.

"I bet you'd just love to get your hands on me now." He taunted as he walked side by side Yugi and Joey, stopping at the doorway to their room as the others were prodded into their own space. "Why don't you keep going?" He reached a hand out to pat Joey's cheek, "Keep having those private conversations with yourself about tearing the eyes out of my head, blinding me won't give little Serenity her sight back, you know."

The smug look of satisfaction fell from his face when the boy had the audacity to chuckle, "I hate you." Tears welled in his eyes, his body shaking with repressed cries as he met the other's gaze in a deadlock, "I hate y-"

The right side of his face burned fiercely on impact, but he was too hysterical in the moment to fully register the pain, let alone the magnitude of what he had just said and done.

The door slammed and he fell in a heap against it, shaking and hyperventilating from the confrontation, "Joey." Yugi whispered after a long stretch of silence, "This plan is all we have, it is our only hope." He stressed, fighting his own emotions to keep the crying spell from coming, "Don't vent to him, vent to me. He's not only keeping you from Serenity, he's keep me from Grandpa and he has Tea out there all by herself and we're stuck here and he's so angry now." The thoughts were coming so fast he thought he might throw up from the dizzying rush of it all, the dungeon would've been better than this. In the dungeon they did not have to face him.

Realization made Joey a snotty, incoherent mess, "I'm sorry." He blubbered, trying to force his legs to move so that he could shove past the guards to Tea's defense. "I'm so sorry." Fawn footed and weak from exertion, he could do little more than cry loudly into his hands, mourning his sister's face and his mother's scolding, afraid he may never experience either again.

To his horror, Yugi sunk down beside him, wrapped an arm around his shoulders, and let his own tears fall onto the fabric of his shirt, "I'm sorry too." He choked, "I just want to go home."

* * *

The phone sat on a glass tabletop, poolside, projecting the voices in clear, crisp quality despite being on speaker phone, "It's slow." The woman said, he could almost hear her flinch in anticipation of his reply, "But we're getting somewhere. If you were here we might me able to…"

"It's slow on my end too." He poured more wine into the glass and left the half-empty bottle beside it, "You're plenty capable of tracking this down on your own, if this is your half-hearted way of saying otherwise, I'll send someone else for the job."

"No!" She hurried exclaimed, "We have a lead, it's just these people are screwing with us, they always have to ask someone, to ask someone else to relay information, then there are restrictions because of the matter at hand. In all honesty, it'll take weeks just to verify they know what they're talking about instead of peddling false information for money –"

"That's what I hired you for." He reminded her edgily, "I don't care about the timeframe, just get it right. I wouldn't expect a simple minded New York City archaeologist to understand rules behind the forces we're dabbling in, but you damn well better treat those people with respect. The information I require is of the most delicate nature, and if you're not careful it may well be the _last_ thing you have the misfortune of screwing up."

He disconnected the call feeling more apprehensive than before, even three glasses in. He fingered the bottle, but left it where it sat. In truth even he would prefer to be in Egypt getting the specifics, but present circumstances prevented that. He left a hand hovering over the millennium eye and spent the rest of the afternoon in silent contemplation.

"Wait for me darling," the eye flickered between the baggage of seven captives, revealing their angry, desperate thoughts. In the end his own blow was working the hardest against him, using Yugi as a ploy to gain his trust was predictable, it was the anger so many of them called 'hatred' that would be the most tedious to undo. Aside from the obvious problem child Seto Kaiba, they knew nothing of true, passionate loathing, the mask they held together in wounds could become love just as easily as it had become 'hate.'

He stood, raising a glass in toast to the notion, all he had to do was peel back the layers.

"They will all be ours in time."

* * *

Author's Musings/Ramblings (feel free to ignore): Someone please correct me if I am wrong, but I've been far too interested in the fact that the ONLY millennium item which requires the user to endure torturous pain as a rite of passage is the millennium eye. Yes, wearers deemed unworthy of the ring, or deemed evil by the scales do parish, but if a person is strong enough to possess the item, they are not subjected to pain or sacrifice of any kind.

Pegasus lost his eye permanently to take control of the millennium item, to my knowledge Yugi did not endure anything of the sort with the puzzle, nor Isis (Ishizu) with the necklace, now the ring is said to have corrupted Bakura's soul into two halves, light and dark, but it doesn't seem like that is the initial price of wielding the item, it comes with time and abuse of power.

In the event I'm not wrong about all this, it is very telling that the item with the greatest price (burden) was given to Pegasus Crawford. Just throwing that out there to the world...


	5. Trump Cards

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Yugioh, nor do I claim rights to any of the affiliated characters.

**Warnings/Notes:** The warnings in chapters 1-3 will continue to apply, thank you again for the lovely reviews and discussions of "Unraveled." Everyone's insight was amazing and I appreciate the feedback more than words can properly express. I apologize for the short chapter, but it was necessary.

Yoko Sakura: To answer your question(s), no one shared a shower. Mattea is a variant of the male name Mateo (Spanish and Croatian form of Matthew, which means gift of God.) There is no set point at which the story will become 'M' rated, it may never happen, it may happen next chapter. It all depends on how the story develops.

Enjoy chapter five.

* * *

_**Chapter Five: Trump Cards **_

* * *

It took a month of strict routine to make considerable impact on their resolves. Frustrating as it had been to come to terms with, Pegasus realized that, at least in the beginning, a good night's sleep was all it took to restore their kindred spirits. They faced him with greater persistence afterwards, which he did not acknowledge with more than the usual mockery. But eventually, even as soon as a week later, they began to relent.

They would still argue, and occasionally refuse to eat if they were feeling especially bold, but resistance was not as fierce as a whole. Their thoughts between time with him gradually became hardened, and more importantly, curious. Joey's hatred bred in anger was festering into disgust at being forcefully drug along like a lapdog, sitting when he was told, sleeping when he was told. The first layer of his anger forged in hurt was beginning to give way to grudges at being systematically broken and dominated.

There was a thin line between curiosity and contempt, however. Pegasus Crawford knew this better than anyone. And so, captives weakened by monotony and hindered by growing to expect routine, he plotted deviation carefully. They were fed up with the situation, but still felt comfortable that he would not maim or kill them, which gave way to secretive, late-night marathons of trying to figure out _why._

From that moment on, he delighted that there would be no going back.

He made his way into the castle distractedly, mind racing with events that would alight the evening, "Don't seat them at the table." He called as he hurried into the formal dining room, eye brightened by the exercise of ascending the stairs. "Take their chairs into the great room and arrange them in a semi-circle."

He was met with stern nods as he led the less-than-talkative bunch to their new destination, "I'm sure dinner is the last thing on your little minds." He cooed over his shoulder as his guards began to file in, captives in toe, and spread out the seats. Pegasus hummed in observance, "Not too close together." He reminded them, dragging a chair to the center of the formation and helping himself to it.

"Just look at you." He flashed a cheshire grin, "You're shaking with anticipation. Well I can't say I blame you, you must be positively bursting with questions. Why has he brought us here? What is he thinking?" He made a dramatic wave around the semi-circle, "It's been five weeks, my little trinkets, and I tire of keeping it from you." His voice had darkened, causing the group to send one another sideways glances.

With a strong body at each of their backs, standing six-foot-something and weighing twice as much as any of them, there was little hope of using the close proximity to windows to their advantage.

"Just get on with it." Kaiba snapped irritably.

"Ah, ah, ah." Pegasus wagged a finger at the young CEO, "You're not in a position to be giving orders, remember?" He set his sight on Mokuba, who sat stoically next to Seto.

He felt the elder Kaiba squirming without having to envision it. In an instant, if he so much as lifted a finger, the boy would be lunging over his brother and clinging to him for dear life. His body would become a barricade against any tortures the host could think to inflict on the youngest in the room.

"Silly Kaiba." He taunted, stretching his long legs comfortably while the children sat straight up, as far away from the backs of the chairs as they could manage, "You've gone and changed my mind." The room oozed tension, bodies growing rigid, redness rising in faces and ears as the livid group battled with their outbursts, "How they must hate you." He laughed uproariously into the silence, drinking in the power of omniscience over their thoughts and actions, savoring every ounce of power over them.

"We're not going to beg." It was Joey who spoke to back Kaiba once he had quelled the majority of his rage.

"I should hope not Joseph; it would make this a lot less fun." He replied with a smile that made the boy visibly shudder. With a shift in persona still a long way off, the thing he loved most about where he stood right now was always being ten steps ahead of them.

"You clearly underestimate me, even now." He shook his head, pouting in hyperbolic disappointment, "I'm hurt. You know I could've picked anyone for this." For _what_? They spat at the eye. "I picked the seven of you because I wanted a challenge. You were all too perfect to pass up for someone easier to control, or even someone willing. Believe it or not, there are people who would kill to be where you are, under complete control of a successful CEO, wrapped around his finger, hanging on his every word."

"We get it. You planned this." Tristan cut in, annoyance flooding him, "You pay millions of dollars to create a tournament luring people to the island. You pay thousands more to a hundred people willing to subdue the ones you like. It's a pretty simple concept."

Pegasus was in front of him in two strides, his hand moved reflexively to block the other's from stroking his face, but a grunt of warning from the guard was all it took to stop him. Breath caught in his throat, he waited for the devastating blow that never came, "Oh keep _going_ sweetheart." Crawford prompted, chuckling as his hands absorbed every tremor, "Your keen perception is too much for me to bear, how will I ever go on if you continue? I pay people to do a job and it gets done – imagine that?" Pegasus's sarcasm suggested his own annoyance now, but it never did more than scratch the surface, he kept painfully collected.

"You say you get it, Tris-tan, but let's face it, that's a joke." He gave a fake, hearty chuckle, tossing his head back momentarily before meeting the other's eyes again, "If you knew anything at all you wouldn't be sitting here prisoner, entirely at my mercy. Here's a little secret kiddo." The hand drifted from his cheek to his ear, pinching hard, "It takes more than money to ensure that."

He stood to full height, smoothing wrinkles on his lavish suit, a laugh still dancing on his lips, "See this whole thing is about choices." He began, turning to face them, "And everything you do affects mine." He withdrew a large piece of paper from his pocket, neatly folded, gleaming white and black in the muted sunlight. "Solomon Motou's body is currently in Al Minya, Egypt, his soul is safe in this castle. What happens to the two parts depends entirely on you."

Yugi growled lowly, bowing his head to hide the shame swelling inside him. Grandpa had nothing to do with this, it wasn't fair for him to be used as a bargaining chip – especially when Pegasus wouldn't tell them what he wanted.

"Don't hurt my grandpa." He whispered, "He's innocent it all of this, he's done nothing to pose a threat to you or your company –"

"Dearest Yugi." Pegasus interrupted, "That statement couldn't be further from the truth. Do you really think a man of my prowess targeted you, a novice at _my _game less than a year ago, on some personal vendetta? No, no, no, that doesn't even make sense." He rolled his eyes, as if having to explain was physically exhausting.

"Your grandfather is a third wheel. He's in the way – and if you love him – you'll do exactly as I say from this moment on. Now don't go assuring me of anything before I've even made the request. That's terrible, terrible business. Ask Kaiba, he'll tell you."

Yugi shook violently, and beside him Joey threw himself out of his chair, knocking it backward onto the guard behind him, "God damn it!" He lunged for Pegasus as hands grabbed for him, trying to hold him back. They clamped onto his jacket hard, but he struggled free of the vice grip and advanced to face the man head on, he would show him. Acting like their plight was some sort of fucking game – he swung violently, but missed, in front of him Pegasus raised a hand to call off his dogs, and he swung again, fist caught by the elder. He kicked violently, landing a blow to Pegasus's shins, knocking him off balance. As the elder went down, he twisted Joey's arm behind his back so roughly he thought it might be torn from the socket.

He struggled limply under the man's weight as he pressed his knee to his back, "Fucking creep!" He seethed, using his free arm to push himself forward as much as he could manage, "Get off –" Pegasus jerked his arm violently, a silent threat to break it unless the blond calmed considerably.

"And then we have you, and you sweet little sister." He didn't bother to continue, merely let the boy lay beneath him helpless, panting hard and cursing the failed adrenaline rush.

"What about her?" He moaned, blinking back tears.

"Shh." He crooned, "You can come collect him now." He told the man who had set Joey's chair upright, "I have something to show him."

Limp from exertion, Joey did little to fight being shoved back into the chair, but refused to meet Pegasus's eyes even as he bent to retrieve the paper he had dropped in their struggle. "Since Joseph insists on pitching a fit." He extended the scrap to Yugi, "I want you to read this, slowly."

He remembered Pegasus's ultimatum about grandpa. As much as he wanted to spit on him for exploiting them like this, he had no other choice but to do as he was told. He unfolded the paper carefully; it was a newspaper article dated November 5….

Swallowing his anxiety, he opened his mouth to read the headline, "Tropical storm halts tournament, Crawford extends generous offer to family." Even those fragmented words commanded total silence from the room, but he pressed on, "Pegasus Crawford, creator of Duel Monsters and CEO of Industrial Illusions, continues to shock the world with his generosity. Shortly after a deadly tropical storm halted the proceedings of Duelist Kingdom, he made an unprecedented offer to the tournament's determined finalist Yugi Motou, whose best friend's sister is battling blindness. While weather prevents his guests from leaving the island for a period of time yet unknown, Crawford has made arrangements for thirteen year old Serenity Wheeler to undergo photocoagulation at the hands of his own, five star medical staff, at no cost to the family…"

Joey felt sick.

"And so you see." Pegasus continued, "We're back to choices. Given the opportunity, I'm a very negotiable man. If you cooperate, little Serenity will have her sight back in half the time it would take the top ophthalmologist of Domino, she can have perfect vision despite the damage waiting to perform surgery has done to her retinal tissue. But if you continue to give me trouble," he stalked closer to Yugi, fingers clutching the newspaper article that Joey could now see showed an old school photo of Serenity, the one he kept in his wallet. "I want you to _truly_ understand how easily something can…go wrong." He lit a match against Joey's chair as he sat in stunned silence, and set the article ablaze in front of his eyes.

"She's just a kid." He choked, battling with the lump in his throat and sinking weight in his stomach.

"So are you." Pegasus crooned, flames crawled slowly up the paper, charring its edges and eating through Serenity's face from the left side.

"What do you want?"

"I want you to make a choice, Joseph." He drawled, letting the ash fall onto the carpet before stomping out the flames, "All or nothing." He continued, stepping back to face everyone, "Can you do that?"

Their heads inclined forward unconsciously in a nod, Kaiba was especially shocked at the will of his body outweighing that of his mind. Doing this was completely insane, but somewhere inside of him a voice was relaying just how easily that girl's photo could become Mokuba's. He clutched the locket against his chest, holding it tight on the chain.

"One more time if you're sure." Pegasus sang out, and again they nodded.

"Just tell us what we have to do." Little Mokuba had found his courage in the flicker of fear darting through Seto's eyes, and clutched his own locket against his pant leg.

"We'll start simple, sweetheart." Anxiety fluttered in Mokuba's stomach as Pegasus lifted him in a familiar position against his chest and shoulder, turning to very clearly address everyone in the room.

"I want you to call me _Daddy_."

* * *

The next update will take a while longer than these have been, try to be patient. The fun starts in chapter six.


	6. Cracks

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Yugioh, nor do I claim rights to any of the affiliated characters.

**Warnings/Notes:** The usual warnings apply. Mind games will be much more apparent from here on out. A huge thank you to my readers, and especially to those who have reviewed, I appreciate all the support.

* * *

_**Chapter Six: Cracks**_

* * *

His proposition filled the air like a eulogy, words carried on the soft melody of a death march. Kaiba's anger propelled his body forward, his shoulders arching slightly as he opened his mouth to reply, but the words caught in his throat and he merely gaped, asphyxiated. Around him, the others were less successful at containing their own horror, desperately trying to discern if this was real.

Mokuba shifted against the red-clad chest, trying to slink to the floor and crawl away unnoticed. "What do you want?" Pegasus crooned.

"Down."

"And how do you ask?"

"Please." He provided. The weight in his stomach dragged his voice down a few octaves and it shuddered with the heavy weight of defeat.

Pegasus clicked his tongue disapprovingly, "Let's try, may I please get down _Daddy_?"

The younger squirmed uncomfortably. He already had a father. He had no desire to relive childhood, in whatever fleeting sense, by assigning the role to someone else. He sucked in a deep breath, unable to turn his body to face his brother in the elder's hold. He needed a look, a nod, something to guide the decision.

He settled for honesty.

"I have a father-"

"Choose your words very carefully, little Mokuba." The arm under his thighs tensed in frustration, and Mokuba almost lost his nerve.

"I already have a father." He repeated, "No one is perfect." He did not need a millennium eye to anticipate Pegasus's reply.

"You _had _a keeper. You forget, or perhaps don't realize that I had the distinct misfortune of knowing Gozaburo Kaiba. He was an arrogant, deluded fool."

_What a coincidence. _Kaiba thought scathingly, _so are you._

"That doesn't matter now." His mind was racing. Pegasus had the power to torture them ceaselessly, make them his slaves, exploit them physically, sexually; however he wanted… what was taking him so long? Was this game really _that_ exciting to him? The child shivered, unable to process the full horror of things he had read about in passing, on internet forums. He wasn't sure whether the whole thing was a fetish or a fantasy.

"Do you think he loved you, Mokuba?"

He was pulled abruptly from his thoughts and scrambled to sweep them where they could not be seen by the millennium eye, "No." He answered a bit distractedly, then, more focused, "No I don't."

"Was he a caring individual outside of business?"

Mokuba clenched a fist, "Why does it matter?"

Pegasus smacked him in warning, "I asked you a question and I expect you to answer it."

"No. He was cruel and harsh, just like you." He spat.

Pegasus chuckled darkly, "Now, now." He patted the cell phone in his pocket, "Let's not resort to little tricks like that, I'm a big boy darling and they can't hurt me. The only person you're hurting right now is Serenity."

"I want to get down, daddy."

"Not yet."

He kicked rigidly, trying to free himself, "I've done what you wanted."

"Oh no you haven't, you've been mouthy, resistant, and down-right rude, if I were Gozaburo Kaiba you'd be nursing a sore behind."

"That doesn't scare me!"

He set the boy on his feet, holding him firmly in front of him, "Oh Mokuba, I haven't given you anything to be afraid of yet." He laughed uproariously as the boy flinched, awaiting a blow or a springing guard from behind. Soon, he ventured, Seto would be powerlessly overcome by multiple men and he would be listening to the struggle as he absorbed misplaced blame. Tears formed behind his eyes. It had always been that way.

"Now don't start fussing." A large hand wiped the droplets from his face, gently stroking as if to coax his eyes open, "You're not here because I want to beat you." Both hands moved to the sides of the boy's head, tilting it upward and brushing back wisps of his unruly hair, "You're here because I intend to show you what a real father is, one loving little lesson at a time." Pegasus's lips pressed the last of the purred words against his forehead, a soft, warm comfort he distantly remembered from infanthood.

He wanted to pull away but found he would not have to, it was Pegasus who straightened, smiled warmly to the rest of the room, and left as quickly as he had come. They were kept confined to chairs then, reeling from the incident and clinging to one another in fear. Pegasus's real intention couldn't seriously be to make them his _children_, could it? To the older boys, sex objects seemed much more plausible.

"You think he gets off on this?" Kaiba asked, gripped Mokuba's hand fiercely.

"Hell if I know." Joey replied numbly, "But he can't hold Ren over my head forever. Sooner or later the surgery will be over and he won't have an easy cover up if he tries anything." It did not matter that the guards were there to hear him, he wanted the message to be relayed.

"Trivialities." Kaiba reminded him, "It takes one good lawyer to put the heat on someone else."

"We have to keep on our toes." Yugi concurred, running a hand through his hair to tame the stress, "Otherwise, who knows what he might do."

* * *

He couldn't pinpoint when the urgency appeared, but once it found him it manifested into something even he could not contain. The entire day after the proposal he could not face them at all. They sat in the great room unkempt.

It wasn't assigning the name to his face that unnerved him; he knew the persona he wished to encompass was a long way off in their eyes. No, it was his own strangely growing desire to _love_ them that was worrisome. Temptation had forced him down a slippery slope, teasing him with the superficial idea of being wanted and needed by someone. He first noticed it when holding Mokuba, even though he had been such a terror, every ounce of patience he had worn down instantly replenished itself. He had justified the boy's actions, _it's normal, _he told himself, _it will be this way for a while. _He should have asserted himself more, should've flaunted the ease with which air could be flowing through Serenity's bloodstream on its way to stop her heart… but he had not. He was being too soft, too often entertaining the notion that ruthlessness would hurt his chances of being a better parental figure than those they already knew. As if that wasn't a fool's goal.

He cursed under his breath, fingers tracing the edges of the picture he'd neglected to re-frame, leaving it tucked in the corner of his mirror. He shook his head, conflicted. At first it had not mattered if they saw him as a monster deep down, if their reluctance gave way out of fear instead of love, but more and more he was reconsidering his options.

Thoughts of that little body pressed against his, trembling with fear and trepidation that _he_ could soothe, threatened everything.

He sunk down onto the soft white comforter of the bed, fingers lazily tracing the stitching. He had avoided a lot of direct cruelty with threats. The delight he took in their anguish just weeks ago set a flicker of guilt in his stomach now. He realized, much to his own dismay, that he would much rather be experimenting with gentleness and wisdom than with brutality.

He clenched and unclenched his fists, trying to gather some shred of sensibility. He did not want to dominate, control, and break them as deeply as he had just weeks ago, now a large part of him wanted to win them over with kindness and bribery. He wanted the closeness of a child's body against his, consensually nestled there in comfort, falling asleep to stories of Cecelia. He wanted board games, sand castles, laughter, and all the things cartoons alighted in him. He swallowed the stupidity that dared not leave his bedroom, moving to the door and pushing it open casually. No matter how much strategy and control the plan dictated…

If Seto was dozing in his chair and Mokuba braved a glance of signature curiosity, and if Yugi was sitting, head in his hands, moaning lowly into stillness, _he was going to lose it._

* * *

He walked the halls to the great room slowly, steeling himself. When he reached the archway he did his best to disguise the remnants of feelings they could not know. None of them had slept, even in shifts. He supposed it would be hard to get settled sitting upright, but he had at least expected them to doze. They sat straight and proud, sunken eyes staring back at him. If it was a show of endurance, it was pitiful. He almost laughed right out loud.

"Good afternoon." He drawled, "I see you've made yourselves comfortable." They met pleasantry with silence, "Cat got your tongues?" He leaned forward, cupping his ear impatiently, expecting soft laughter or scoffing.

"They've been like this all night." Croquet spoke from behind Joey, to which Pegasus shrugged indifferently and sat down.

"Joseph you look pale." He crossed his legs; hands folded on top of them, piecing together a professional, "Are you feeling alright?"

The boy nodded, meeting his eyes for only a moment before redirecting his attention to the carpeted floor. Right now the only resistance that might be safe was avoiding him altogether.

"When I speak I expect an answer." They were at an impasse.

"Aside from the obvious, I'm fine."

"Why don't you make things a little more obvious." The CEO smirked dangerously.

He almost made light of it, comedy had been a release for him from a young age, but this was not something to laugh off with a simple, 'no thanks.' He fidgeted nervously, wringing his sweaty hands as he stalled for time. "I want to go home."

"You are home."

He bit his tongue to keep from losing his temper, "I miss my mother."

"You're lying." Even Pegasus knew that wasn't entirely true, some part of the boy was desperate for yelling, for judgmental comparisons to his drunken father, any sound of her voice he could manage. "Tell me the whole truth, and don't keep me waiting."

"I want to see my sister, I want to be there when the bandages come off and she can see again."

He barely needed to ponder this, "I can arrange that."

Joey had to physically clasp a hand in front of his mouth to keep from vomiting. His prideful posture crumbled, shoulders slumping forward, body slouching closer to the monster at the center of the room. He suddenly felt completely suffocated by the close proximity of them all, more than anything he wanted out and away, but it was all he could do to hold his stomach.

"Now don't be embarrassed, it's not like you're asking the world. To tell you the truth I rather like even numbers."

"Enough already!" Kaiba seethed, hand still gripping Mokuba's even as his gaze traveled to the boy he once shared a classroom with. He had no respect for him in the dueling arena, but as a brother he understood every ounce of plight.

"Wait your turn, Kaiba-boy." He instructed, turning a hardened gaze toward the taller of the two boys before re-focusing his attention on Joey, "I'm going to give you a first piece of advice." He continued, anger slipping from his tightened features and easing them into a look of complacency, "Be very careful what you wish for."

_It might just come true. _

The thought lingered unanimously among them; he picked it up without having to concentrate. It was only obvious because they were too afraid to speak it.

"I don't know how to act like this is normal." Joey blurted out to ease the tension, "I have a family and no matter what you do to change that, they're never going to disappear."

"Silly boy," he rose from the seat and stretched his legs, "I'm not asking you to forget them entirely, I'm merely telling you that eventually, whether you like it or not, they will mean nothing to you in the way of families. That's not far from the truth for the donors you refer to as mother and father anyway."

He sputtered helplessly, desperate to reach some sane, compassionate part of the man, "I, we can't just – "

"You can." Pegasus interrupted firmly, "I'll show you." He ruffled the blond hair atop Joey's head, smiling knowingly down at him. In the end there was little he could do to delay the grizzly surrender.

"Why don't you ask the rest of us what we want?" The question started as a whisper, but got louder as Tea forced herself to swallow, working feeling into her jaw. He snapped his head up, hand still resting comfortably in the warmth of Joey's hair.

"How cute, you want to tell me about your wishes. Your little brother was embarrassed to admit he made them, you know." He looked to Mokuba, who stared harder at his brother's shoes and tried not to blush. Beside him Kaiba could no longer quell his fury.

"I've had enough of whatever sick game you're playing! Mokuba is the only family I'll ever need and he can easily say the same, where the hell do you get off – "

"Wait your turn Seto Kaiba!" He bellowed, "I won't tell you again." The hand he had previous buried in Joey's locks grabbed Seto's hand and tore it violently away from Mokuba's, a silent final warning. "Go on Tea." He moved back from the boys and advanced to her seat on the far left.

"You're daddy." She affirmed in the calmest voice she could muster, "So what happened to Mommy?"

"Don't test me." He growled, nostrils flaring with anger as he towered in front of her.

"I just want to know who my mother is if not my _real_ mother." She continued in sweet, mock-innocence. She gave no thought to what would happen if she pushed too far, she only knew her own growing fear of the terrible unknown. Consuming herself with the notion that a decent human being must be somewhere inside Pegasus, suppressed by the purring voice of a monster created in tragedy, she rose from her seat to match his own stance. "Tell me about her, please."

"Sit down."

"I'm just asking a question. If you want us to give up our own families for this, it must be very important to you." She took a chance and stretched her hand out to loosely grasp his arm, "There are thousands of children that need you, that dream of being adopted. Why us? Why a group of people who are nearly grown anyway?"

He jerked away from her hold, grabbing both of her slim shoulders, "I wanted you." He spat, "That's the end of it."

"What about your wife?" She inquired, in too deep to back out and unable to reach him conventionally, "Tell us what our mother wants!"

"FINE!" He threw her to the ground with a sickening thud, the impact making her head spin and her bones ache. She moaned against the carpet, tears spilling out onto its fibers as he hyperventilated over her, shaking with rage. "Fine." He whispered, kneeling down over her body, so close that tresses of silver tickled the skin of her cheek.

She sobbed louder at the intrusion; trying to force her limbs to cooperate even to crawl away. But her arms and legs throbbed fiercely and she succumbed to the dizzying rush of consciousness, breaths pulling tight in her chest, heaving her forward with every erratic pull. She needed to slip into sleep to escape this, even for a moment, but the peace would not come.

Her vision was blurred and blackening at the edges, but she could make out his face as he guided her limp body into his arms. As shudders oozed the last trickles of emotion she could gather in exhaustion, he began stroking her face and hair. _I reacted so suddenly. _He mused, pressing a thumb to the tears rolling off her chin, brushing them gently away. _I shouldn't have done that. Father's don't yell so harshly at their children. _He brought her head close to his heart, hushing tenderly. _Father's don't throw their daughters on the ground like they're dirt. This is a nightmare, I know better than this. _

Glimpses of Gozaburo Kaiba flitted into his mind; he forced them out with visions of blue dresses and blonde curls. What would Cecelia say if she saw him now, nursing a little one he had so viciously wounded?

Her breathing, though quick and ragged with exertion, was slowing as her body gave into fatigue, her heart rate was steadying too. She seemed to be okay aside from the bruises forming on her head and shoulder blades, and the brush burn marring her left check and elbow.

"You want to hear about Mama, little one?" She tried to nod against the arms cradling her, mouth opening and closing weakly as she forced unintelligible noise from her throat. "Shh." He cooed.

"Mama is a pianist. She's touring with an up-and-coming violinist as we speak, her favorite composer is Pachelbel, and the entire time I've known her she's had a melody on her lips." He kissed her hairline gently, lips fluttering against the skin as she faded further into sleep, "Don't be upset, darling." She trembled in his hold, disturbed by the lingering sound of his voice, "She'll be home soon enough to hold you again. I know you're missing her terribly."

He blinked to clear his vision, forcing the tears back as he cleared his throat, "In the meantime I'll be right here, there's no need to be afraid anymore. Go to sleep." He coaxed, and as he did so, he guided her ever closer to his body, rocking her against his strong chest in perfect rhythm.

Whatever happened to Pegasus Crawford could not be undone with persistence and begging, from their seats a few feet away from him, both captive and servant were wondering if it could be undone at all.

When they thought the spectacle could escalate no further, when the assured themselves with crushing sincerity that Crawford could not be anymore broken, he began to hum a lullaby. The humming evolved into words that stole their breath, not only because he was gifted, but because every child in the room knew them by heart. One by one they battled with their own hysteria, coming undone to the notion of bitter unfairness. The soft, soothing voices of their mothers, however distantly remembered, were forever replaced by Pegasus Crawford's.

He was corrupting every vision of love, contentment, and hope they scavenged from the forbidden outside world, and he wasn't even _trying_.

* * *

Author's Note: The lullaby I am referring to (and listened to on repeat while writing this) is one I did not know existed until a few days ago. It is a male version of the popular "Lullaby for a Stormy Night" and if you search it on youtube you will never read this chapter the same way again. Truly haunting.


	7. Playing With Fire

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Yugioh, nor do I claim rights to any of the affiliated characters. Any brands you may recognize in this chapter are the sole legal property of their respective owners.

**Warnings/Notes:** First and foremost I owe more gratitude than I can express to my faithful readers and reviewers. I honestly did not expect this story to have a following; it was just something floating around in my head that has kind of evolved over time. In any case this chapter is eventful and I encourage you to leave any questions, feedback, etc. you may have to help guide the process of future chapters.

Enjoy chapter seven.

* * *

_**Chapter Seven: Playing With Fire **_

* * *

"Look how fragile you are." He toyed with her bangs, sweeping them to the side of her forehead and allowing the shorter places to fall back into position, "What kind of fool hurts a child?" Tea did not stir but he posed a soft "Hmm?" to reiterate.

He could feel the warm trail of breath against his skin as he gently rubbed the back of his fingers against her red, chaffed cheek. Her eyelids fluttered but did not open, and as he gathered her in both arms to stand, he began humming anew. "I think the boys need to relax. It's time we cut the melodrama; wouldn't you say Kaiba-boy?" Cerulean eyes settled daringly on the ring master, hand clutching his brother as they rose to be corralled.

"It's a little late for that." He quipped, sweeping Mokuba in front of him and placing one hand on each of the boy's shoulders to guide him. Makoto grunted in warning, casting a sideways glance to his boss as if looking for permission to allow their closeness.

"Come along." The elder prompted sternly, leading the way to an extravagant region of the castle. From behind him he could hear Mokuba whispering hurriedly to his brother; _do you think she's hurt, Seto? Really hurt? _The other answered with a slight shake of his head, pressing the child onward behind Yugi.

As Pegasus balanced Tea bridal style long enough to push the white painted door open, he caught Kyoshi shoving roughly against Yugi, "Don't get any ideas." He snarled, seeing the boy's eyes travel from hallway to hallway, trying to navigate the castle.

"I'll handle that thank you." He called over his shoulder in warning, laying Tea down on a makeshift daybed in the floor-length window seat. "For now get them seated." They assembled like clockwork, each boy sitting in the front most section of reclining chairs that dotted the living area in rows. The room was a homey shade of ivory, decorated entirely in muted neutral tones. The outlandishly expensive television seemed out of place amidst what may've otherwise been a modest living room. As it flickered to life in front of them, the guards at their banks sunk into seats in the row behind their captives.

Pegasus was grinning like a school boy beside Tea, stroking her hair lovingly as he placed her head in his lap. He looked passed the others, unfazed, as the television began to play a ceaseless marathon of cartoons.

Yugi noted that Funny Bunny was a lot like the shows of his elementary school days, endless games of cat and mouse that led nowhere and always yielded the same results. Over and over he watched the pink rabbit escape a brown, menacing bulldog in increasingly unorthodox ways. Once, the demented beast had simply winked away his bones, congealing into a puddle of pepto bismol fur and settling into a tiny crevice between the candy store and police station. When the enemy had headed off in the wrong direction, the tricky hare emerged, grinning and giggling as he hopped out into the street, vanishing through a manhole cover adorned with white graffiti of a rose and laurel leaves.

He sighed, eyes sinking heavily as boredom coaxed him into sleep. He blinked a few times to keep his eyes open, trying to stay awake to see Tea return to consciousness. All at once, in the haze of almost oblivion, it came to him. In the conjoined bathroom to the room he and Joey shared, there was a small ventilation shaft between the shower and toilet, engraved with the same symbol. He jerked forward in the chair, biting his lip to suppress a gasp.

"Yugi-boy?" Pegasus almost seemed bored, "What's the matter?"

He paused to collect himself, still half-asleep and trying to piece together a plan, "Nothing." He murmured, sinking slowly back into the cushioning fabric of the recliner, "I dozed off." He continued, laughing dismissively.

The TV halted, paused by Croquet at the entryway, leaving a dull his of static lingering in the otherwise silent room. Yugi could feel the breath settling uncomfortably in his chest, expanding against the vents of his ribcage in a tightened burst, "Must've been quite the dream."

"Yug?" Joey mouthed, not daring to divert his gaze from the scene of Funny Bunny in wild suspension, tongue hanging sideways out of his mouth, lips stretched in a wide, howling smile as a mallet occupied both hands well above his head, ready to come down on the unsuspecting skull of McGruff's newest sidekick.

"It's nothing." Yugi mouthed back as Pegasus returned his attention to the sleeping child in his lap. But that was far from the truth.

"Feed them Croquet." Pegasus instructed as he gathered Tea's limp form to his own. From his perch beside the door, the graying head-of-security noticed a sickening look of contentment on his employer's face. As he cradled the girl, Croquet battled with thoughts of what truly made the man tick.

"Sir?" He questioned, remote lingering in his hand.

"They've seen more than enough for today." He replied lowly. Yugi tried to ignore the way Pegasus's eyes found his in silent warning. He forced himself to repress nagging thoughts in the back of his head that screamed Pegasus knew, Pegasus _always_ knew.

As they filed in for dinner Pegasus paused for a single moment at the table. Though they expected him to join, he turned with Tea in the opposite direction of her bedroom, and left.

_Clever little shit. _The flamboyant host mused to himself as he wandered back the hall to the master suit, it was no matter, however. He was prepared for these things.

Just a few paces from his bedroom, a familiar presence commanded his attention, "I don't like to be followed around my own castle, Kyoshi."

The younger pulled nervously at his collar, "I apologize sir, I got a little turned around." He rubbed the back of his head amicably with one hand.

Pegasus approached the door, "Your quarters are directly to the left of the dueling arena, bathroom and kitchen included. You can manage that much, can't you?"

He opened his mouth, trying to find his voice, "Yes sir, I'm sorry." He added again.

"It's lucky you've run into me, actually. It's time you and I had a little chat. Meet me tonight around nine o clock, it's important the children are settled in first."

Kyoshi paused nervously, "Of course sir," then, before he could stop himself, "Meet you back here, you mean?"

Pegasus chuckled in a way that made him feel immediately and hopelessly stupid, "Ask Makoto, when the time comes he'll show you the way."

Then, like a ghoulish caricature, he disappeared behind the door.

* * *

"So you gonna tell me about earlier?" Joey whispered once safely away from the guards.

Yugi hesitated for a long moment, pacing the length of the room before sitting down on the bed and motioning Joey closer, "Remember how thin the walls are." He mumbled as the taller boy shot him a confused look.

"Right." He replied quietly, leaning in close.

"When Pegasus had us watching that cartoon, I noticed something. Do you remember when the rabbit fell through the manhole?" Joey paused for a moment, nodding, "The cover had a symbol on it that matches a vent in the bathroom." The shorter boy pointed a thumb over his shoulder to the adjacent door.

"And?"

"That's how the rabbit got away Joey, through the passage marked with rose and laurel. What if that vent leads us out?"

The taller body tensed, shoulders edging up defensively, "Are you crazy?" He hissed, "We don't even know where it goes."

Yugi flinched, knowing Serenity was weighing heavily on Joey's mind, "I know this is crazy." He began, putting both hands up in a show of empathy, "But it's the only chance we have right now. Trust me, I'm not going anywhere without you, you know that."

Joey shoved a fist down against the cushioned mattress, "Of course I know that!" He snapped, "But I don't even know what vent you're talking about, what if it's blocked by something? Hell, what if it's a trap?"

"We've only gotten this far by taking risks. This entire tournament was a gamble." Yugi replied slowly, trying to ease caution into the hand that moved to rest on his friend's shoulder, "It's either make a go of this, or go insane waiting to be rescued."

Joey rose suddenly from the bed, crouching down as if meaning to sit but being unable to force himself. He combed a hand through his hair, running it across his face to clear his head, "Yug, if he finds you…" Serenity passed his mind, her thin frame limp under hospital sheets, stripped of her smile and the smell of his mother's homemade laundry detergent, faint lavender and chamomile, "We gotta give it more time." He declared at last, "We need a better idea of what could happen."

Yugi paused, looking down at the carpet meekly, "If I had my puzzle." He began, "We'd stand a lot better chance against him. You know that's what it comes down to Joey, us against him."

"And his guards, and his traps."

The shorter boy wilted further, finally moving the arm Joey had disturbed into his lap, "It's like Bakura said, all we need is a chance."

Joey brought both hands up to the sides of his head, clenching angrily, "I hate this."

"So do I."

Silence descended upon the room, harsh and disorienting. Joey paced until it no longer did anything to distract him from his thoughts. He had promised to take Serenity to the beach, he had promised to be there the next time her mother brought home a man, half-naked, slurring drunkenly the morning after as he reached across the breakfast table, squeezing her shoulder. He slid the wallet from his pocket and flipped it open for her picture.

She was smiling timidly for the camera, eyes alive with the usual excitement of picture day. He missed her smile, the way she joked through the hurt to tame his frustration, even when he was scathing and harsh, lashing out toward their mother in the kind of secrecy only two siblings really share. Trembling fingers traced the outline of her face desperately. The only question was whether she needed him to take a chance at being free more than she needed him to play it safe by ignoring the vent for a few more days. Just until after the surgery.

_It takes one good lawyer to put the heat on someone else._

He bit back a sob at Kaiba's words, back to Yugi, avoiding his eyes.

"Go." He croaked, reaching out his free hand to steady himself against the wall for a moment before tossing the bathroom door open, "Just come back in one piece, would ya?"

Yugi paused, meeting his friend's gaze determinedly, "Joey…"

"C'mon." He motioned, crouching down in front of the vent to force the rusting cover off. The two worked at either side of the metal, trying to pry it quietly from the hinges, with every hideous screech of protest, Yugi winced while Joey worked faster. "Don't forget what's at stake." He prompted as the vent fell into his hands.

"I won't." Yugi replied, bracing himself, "If it sounds like the guards are coming in, get up and turn the shower on, it'll buy you a little time anyway."

Joey nodded in understanding, "I will." He assured, "Get out of here." Yugi nodded, sizing the vent for a moment before making a move to enter, "Wait, wait wait!" Joey opened the top drawer of the dresser and grabbed a fistful of bandanas, "These were Serenity's, she gave them to me for luck." He replied, extending them, "In case you need them."

"Thank you."

"Now go."

Yugi wrapped his arms around the taller form one more time before taking a deep breath for courage, "For luck." He murmured and, tying the bandanas around his wrist, he turned and shimmied into the narrow corridor.

* * *

In the opposite wing of the castle Pegasus was filling his time with worry, Tea had been asleep for several hours, and though she showed no signs of lasting distress of injury, he worried that her lapse in consciousness was a sign of something serious.

"Darling." He shook her gently, peeling back the comforter of his bed to expose her body to the cool draft of night. "You're never going to sleep tonight." He chided, voice gentle and coaxing, "You know I can't have you on a different schedule than the others, it would hardly be fair." As his tones shifted from serious to silly he began to try harder to pull her out of sleep.

She heaved a deep breath when he held a hand over her nose, but he did not have the heart to completely restrict her airway for fear she would be unresponsive. Even now, as she clearly descending back into dreams, he was unsure she was fully capable of gathering coherency.

"You know better than to worry me like this." He stood at her bedside, cupping her cheek and removing the compress he'd laid across the inflamed flesh. "I'm sorry I was harsh, but you know I love you to the moon." He bargained, almost desperately, smoothing his hand across the warmth of her hair, "You are my everything." He whispered as Funny Bunny called out from his alarm clock on the end table, reminding him of his impending meeting.

He reached a hand out to cut the noise, but paused for a moment, watching the child intently for any signs of disturbance to her slumber. When he saw none, he pressed snooze, effectively signaling the end of the chanting. Trying to prepare himself to deal with Kyoshi was nearly impossible as he battled long-repressed feelings of guilt and anxiety.

"Don't you get any ideas of meeting Mama." He prodded in the last moments before he pried himself away, hardening his resolve for business, "Trust Daddy's timing for that." He pressed a kiss to her forehead, turning grudgingly to the door and making sure to lock it behind him. He had no real worry of her waking before his return, but as he trailed the hallways to his new destination, he vowed to be quick. If she was still asleep when he returned, he would have to page the doctor from the top floor, if she was not, he would have more than one person to punish tonight.

The room he eventually found himself in was small compared to the rest of Duelist Kingdom, an eight by eight former study with bookshelves lining the right and left walls in their entirety. Even still, Pegasus had grown to treasure it. The size made it intimate, perfect for those special sessions of discipline he so often needed to host among his employees. There was a large oak door at the far end with what looked to be an old-fashioned, rusting mail slot in the middle. He sat in a chair a few feet away from it, across from another seat that directly obstructed the view of an engraved rose.

Two raps at the entry pulled him from his quiet musings, "Come in." He beckoned the younger. "Have a seat."

He could feel Kyoshi tremble, taking half a step back in apprehension as the cockiness that had followed on his heels was devoured by tension. He never turned to address the man, merely sat cross-legged, gesturing lazily to the seat opposite him. Hesitantly the thinner frame approached, he cleared his throat at least three times in eight steps, and as he settled fearfully into the chair, it became painfully obvious that he had been drinking to calm his nerves. His face was slightly flushed, eyes well hidden behind shades that did not match the well-lit space.

"Good evening." Pegasus leveled his gaze with the other's.

"Evening." Kyoshi mumbled sheepishly, sitting up straighter in an attempt to excuse his awkward entrance.

"You've been spending a lot of time around the children. What do you think?" Even more unnerving to Kyoshi than the small, unfamiliar space and limited audience, was his boss's uncharacteristic desire to get straight to business.

He grunted uncomfortably, "They're something else alright." He replied with a laugh that was quickly lost to silence.

"Oh?"

Even he could tell the comment had not been received well, but there was little he could do to explain it away, "You know how these things are, lots of yelling and whining." He glanced around the room for something to hone his focus, anything to distract him from the redwood eye burning a hole in his face.

"Children are rowdy by nature, Kyoshi."

"Yeah."

"You seem to have a particular gripe against little Yugi."

Across from him Kyoshi began wringing his hands nervously, beads of sweat pooling at his already greasy hairline. He fidgeted, recalling his foolish advance toward the boy a while earlier, "Not the kid per say." He at last managed, "You know, I just - he couldn't think it was okay to ignore you."

"Ah." The room had swelled with animosity, as Kyoshi shrank back into his chair to get away from the psychopath, Pegasus smiled in acknowledgement, "You wanted to teach him a lesson?" He asked, voice riddled with contempt.

He felt numb, "Something like that."

"The last man I knew to discipline another's child was found three days later on a subway track, in pieces."

Kyoshi swallowed thickly, wishing he'd done more to quell the anxiety bubbling in his stomach, "I...should get back to work."

"No, no, you're exactly where you need to be."

"I don't understand."

He uncrossed his legs, leaning forward, "In the room behind you there are two very important items. The children seem to think they have a claim on them." He moved the hair out of his face, millennium eye fully illuminated, "Little Yugi is going to come looking for them tonight."

Kyoshi pressed his hands into his pockets, only to withdraw them a moment later. His fists tensed slightly, mouth opening and closing as he sputtered, gaping and awe-struck, at the gaudy abomination of metal.

"Sir?"

"The concept is simple." Pegasus moved his hair back into place, smile stretching widely across his lips, revealing fine wrinkles at their edges. Below him, a slightly heeled shoe clacked against hardwood, shackles slid out from slots underneath Kyoshi's chair and clasped around his ankles. "If the weight of your body shifts from this position it will send you plummeting to your death. If little Yugi wants his precious puzzle, he'll have to sacrifice you to get to the door." He laughed casually, "I'll admit the setup is a bit rustic, even for me, but if he does gather the courage to kill you the shackles at your feet are set to ensnare him. When he so much as touches the latch on that door," He motioned to the slot beyond the hired muscle, "he'll be in for quite the surprise."

"What the hell?!" The breath left him suddenly and he wheezed, choking violently on the words, "You can't do this to me, I'm on your side!"

"You are an uncouth swine with no sense of boundaries." A clock chimed from the hall and he rose, bowing mockingly, "I'd love to go on, but its bedtime and I have children who need tucking in."

"You're fucked in the head! I ain't touched a hair on him and you've got the nerve to be pissed when you're willing to kill him?!"

"Don't worry your pretty little head about that, I'm ninety five percent sure Yugi won't get that far, and even if he does, well, it would ruin the surprise to tell you."

The elder had already turned his back to the scene and started toward the exit, "Wait, god damn it! You're making a mistake - "

He waved a hand dismissively toward the other, "Goodbye Kyoshi. I wish I could say it's been a pleasure."

"If you leave me here I swear to god I'll kill that little fucker! As soon as I see him, he's mine, you hear me? _He's mine_!"

He paused a final time, redwood eye glinting in the crack of the door, "That's right." he mocked, "show him who's boss, Kyoshi." With a throaty laugh he turned again, and was gone.

* * *

Yugi took shallow breaths, trying to ignore the faint smell of decay at every inhale. By moving slowly he knew he was taking a huge chance not only with his safety, but with Joey's. The longer it took him to get back, the more risk he took of the guards finding out he had left the room. There were factors working against timeliness, however. For one he was wedged tight in the shaft, lucky to fit at all. More importantly, too much noise would alert them he was on the move, and give them a direct path to wherever he ended up. Little room to control his movement meant he was not graceful, and aluminum was certainly not soundless.

He tried to tame his fear by focusing on strategy, but without the spirit of the puzzle to incite said courage it was an impossible task. When he came to the first fork in the shaft he noticed a fading stamp along the metal, branding 'Rosewood Inc.' to the right. With no other lead, he began to crawl, leaving bandanas like bread crumbs to guide the way back. At thoughts of the fairytale, he almost laughed. Hopefully Pegasus would not cook them all at the end of this.

Eventually, keeping right whenever possible and littering the shaft with bandanas, he came to a vent. The scene it opened to was strangely unfamiliar. This ward of the castle was old-fashioned, and though Pegasus's abode didn't have a cohesive theme, it was a bit eerie to see scenes from a museum in a hallway.

Footsteps drew near, a stray feminine voice groaning, "Two more hours, Joy."

"Yeah, yeah," the rasping voice of an older woman acknowledged, matching strides with her companion, "Just a few more bathrooms and we're done for the night."

They stopped just a few paces in front of the shaft and he carefully forced himself backward, letting the shadows encircle and conceal him, "Then we can finally have some fun." The younger tossed her head back, hand following in the motion of taking a shot.

He waited for the laughter and footsteps to fade before easing out into the corridor, crouching to shift the vent back into place. The two women had gone right, and though it felt odd to break the pattern that got him this far, he did not want to risk running into them. Aside from that, his path to freedom dictated more than the bathrooms they were off to clean.

He turned left and hurried off, staying close the wall in the shadow of hanging light fixtures. Navigating was easier than he expected, but he prayed he was not trapping himself in a labyrinth of hardwood hallways and well-staged potted plants. In the desperate need to get somewhere, he picked up his pace, socks making little noise on the floor but not allowing much traction either. As he slid about the corridors he eventually came to stand at the middle of a final crossroad, the right path leading him down a dead end where a window let in moonlight against a bouquet of dried flowers.

"Who's out there?" He froze, breath catching in his throat as he willed himself to be silent and still, "That area is off limits." The voice echoed, taking a step closer from the opposite corridor, "If Master Pegasus hears about this he'll have your head." The body began to approach quicker, and at the sound of steady footsteps, he tore off to the end of the hallway. "What the hell –"

The footsteps were gaining ground on him, coming in long, fast strides his own legs could not match. He passed the first few doors, socked feet slipping on polished hardwood as he lunged for an escape. He needed the window, the window, the – his chin connected hard with the floor, a fire of pain and adrenaline. He scrambled to his feet, disoriented but not deterred.

"Jesus Christ!" The elder yelled, "It's one of those kids!"

_Shit. _

He followed the hallway to the final door on the right, marked with a white rose and laurel. He did not have time to climb onto the decorative table to reach the height of the window. The body at his back was closing in, as he tore open the last remaining barricade between their two forms he felt the older man grab for his shirt collar, fingers grazing it before disappearing behind thick oak.

The door slammed hard, convulsing hands setting the deadbolt he knew would not keep Pegasus's goons at bay for long. He jerked his gaze up, intending to find something to block to the door and buy him more time, but stopped dead in his tracks.

Kyoshi.

The breath left his body in one violent blow, legs crumbling beneath him. He was trapped.

This was the end.

His back absorbed every well-placed, powerful kick the security guard was throwing to the back of the door, but he could not force himself to move away. Part of him, numbed by defeat and wounded by the reality of having disappointed – failed – his friends, hoped the two men would kill him now. He expected one of them, at any moment, to send a bullet or a sturdy oak door crashing into his skull, crushing, tearing, obliterating.

"C'mere kid."

He followed the voice with listless eyes; up from the ground…Kyoshi's feet were bound. He forced himself up, straining hard to be sure his tired mind was really deciphering this, Kyoshi had fallen into the trap set for him. He almost laughed right in the man's face.

"Looks like Pegasus did know what I had planned." He announced, more to himself than to the man across from him, "But his little trap caught you instead." He slowly approached, being sure to keep more than arm's length away, as Kyoshi's wrists were curiously not bound. From behind the brunet he could make out an engraved rose on what looked to be a door.

"Wait, WAIT!" He wasn't sure why, but something about the urgency of Kyoshi's tone stopped him.

"I've had enough." He spoke, gravel-voiced and trembling, "My friends and I are getting out of here, you sick creep."

"Are you?"

He spun around to face the entryway, the guard from earlier was nowhere to be seen, but in front of him, barely in the door, was Pegasus.

He drew a deep breath, opening his mouth as if to reply before deciding against it, he maneuvered around Kyoshi, who was still yelling in protest, "If you touch this chair I'm dead. "

"You're lying." He pressed both hands to the back of the chair, prepared to lean his full weight against it to tip it over.

"No." Pegasus called casually, coming into the room, "For once in his pathetic life, he's telling the truth. The moment you move the chair his ankles will be released and the platform he's on with plunge him into the sea." He chuckled, reaching into his pocket to withdraw a fistful of items, "Maybe we should give him these Yugi-boy, for luck."

_Serenity's bandanas, but how did he…_

"Don't! D-don't come any closer, I'll do it!" He exclaimed, too frantic at the shrinking proximity of their bodies to continue his thoughts.

"What, make another rainbow in my ventilation shaft?" The elder threw his head back, laughing uproariously, "Go on Yugi-boy, make Daddy proud." Yugi looked from Pegasus to Kyoshi, hands on the back of the chair too weak from exertion, and lacking any traces of adrenaline to push it over.

Pegasus moved directly in front of Kyoshi, who was sputtering something he didn't care to hear, "I'm truly surprised. Caring, innocent, pacifist Yugi doesn't have the heart to kill a man?" He clapped large hands over Yugi's, pressing down hard, "What a shame." With a violent jerk, he sent Kyoshi forward into his chest, and in the next instant, screaming down a dark wormhole to the ocean.

Yugi's screams chorused those of the soon-to-be-corpse long after he had crashed into the waters below. "There's a lot Daddy's capable of that you seem not to understand." Strong arms took Yugi in a vice grip and threw him into the middle of the room, pinning him harshly to the ground, "I think it's time we changed that."

"Please." The child sobbed openly now, his face contorted in a snotty mess of fear and guilt.

"You've tried my patience for the last time." He growled, knee pinning Yugi on his back as he withdrew a glistening card from his pocket.

"I'm sorry." He whispered, "I just want to go home." Begging felt worse than the defeat, but if it would save his friends he was willing. As he continued to plead, the man turned the duel monster's card in his hand, slowly revealing Solomon's face. _Grandpa. _

"It seems you need persuaded to behave." A glint of malice crossed the wine colored iris as he placed both hands on the paper to rip it.

"Stop!" He shrieked, "I swear it won't happen again. I just wanted to go home." His voice wavered, breathing ragged and quick, for a moment Pegasus thought the child would vomit and choke, "I'll do whatever you want."

"You said that before." Gone from his voice was the trace of cheer and mockery, what remained was the hollow drawl of something Yugi did not want to face. "Do you know what happens if I rip up this card, Yugi-boy? Your grandfather's soul will split into tiny fragments; he will splatter bloody, warped memories across the shadow dimension for the rest of eternity." He pressed the boy's skull harder against the floor, leaning against his chest until their two forms were practically on top of one another and their breaths were mingling with tears, "The human body can last for years on life support, without a flicker of the soul, but even when that decays he will be the same as the other skeletons underneath. Take it from me; it's much more painful to split soul than sinew."

"Ple-ease Daddy," Pegasus moved away, kneeling beside the boy and gazing intently at him as his fingers traced the edge of the soul card.

"Daddy means business." He assured with a hellish smile, "You know I hate to have to punish you so severely."

The thought of hurting his friends was unbearable, but losing grandpa was unspeakably worse. Without grandpa there was no reason to be here, nothing to go home to if they ever got out of this mess. As much as his friends meant to him, he was nothing if not for Grandpa.

The words came spilling out before he could register their impact, "I love you."

The elder ran a hand through his hair, bending to kiss his cheek, "I love you too darling." He purred, "You know you deserve this right?" Yugi sobbed, burying his face in his hands, "You _know_ you deserve this." Pegasus repeated, and through the numbing frenzy of anxiety, he nodded. Something stirred deep within Crawford at the sight of the hysterical child, two personalities waging war against one another, "I want to hear you say it, 'I deserve this.'"

The soul card lay abandoned on his lap, both hands holding Yugi's away from his face, "I deserve this." He cried out into madness.

The broken eyes did not haunt Crawford because he had caused the trauma, but because they relayed the truth of Yugi's thoughts. He was not simply miming as the elder had expected, he was internalizing, believing the feeling of worthlessness.

A sharp pang of regret settled in the red-clad chest, "Never again." Cried the child, empty in a way Pegasus never intended him to feel, broken too completely, too irreversibly if he went through with this.

"Never again." The captor repeated, pocketing the card and gathering the child in an embrace.

Danger miraculously averted, Yugi screamed thanks to anyone listening, ignoring the pull of his spirit toward the door a few feet away, where the puzzle set in wait for him. It was all he could do to process Grandpa's temporary safety, and that was enough. Nothing else mattered, even escape.

"I love you." For a moment as Pegasus held him, gently extending mercy in authority, the child thought he might truly mean it.

* * *

Additional Notes: Not the end but certainly a new beginning. Major brownie points to anyone who can guess the speaker of the final 'I love you.' Chapter 8 will be a bit delayed given the upcoming holiday so please be patient, and, as always, thank you for reading.


	8. Entity

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Yugioh, nor do I claim rights to any of the affiliated characters.

**Warnings/Notes: **There is somewhat graphic mention of bodily injury toward the end of the chapter, if this is offensive or triggering for you, please proceed with caution. I'd like to once again thank anyone who has read, reviewed, or otherwise supported the progress of this story. You are amazing in so many ways. Several of you were correct in guessing Yugi as the speaker of the final 'I love you' last chapter, yay!

* * *

_**Chapter Eight: Entity**_

* * *

There was no telling how long she'd been asleep, but as she woke to blackness the tiny, whispered thought passed her mind. She fumbled through the haze of fatigue, startled by fast approaching sounds. _How did I get here? _Tea wondered as she stretched her arm out against the cotton sheets of the bed, feeling for its edge. As she sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the taller, wider mattress, one thing became increasingly clear; she was not in the usual bedroom.

Fear consumed her as the muffled tremor of sound became voices. Her heart beat fast and hard in her chest, throwing her forward gracelessly, one pace, two. Her hip collided harshly with the edge of an end table and she sucked in a breath to keep from crying out, grabbing the tender area and clutching to relieve the pain. The voices, both familiar and strange to her, overtook her thoughts in a frenzy of words and hysteria. _Go into the closet honey, and shut the door. _The only feminine voice became strong and repetitive in a show of dominance against the others. Tea remembered it distantly; the soft drawl had invaded her dreams, coaxing her out of peace and into reality once more.

"What closet?" The brunette whispered lowly, feeling for a doorknob to indicate the hiding place. In the moment she was too panicked to remember the events that left her unconscious, but she still somehow felt that she did not belong there, that the room between her and the abductor at its door was private and special. Turning on the light would give her away, but if she could listen to the woman's voice long enough to hide until he left, she might find a way out.

Shaking hands jerked blindly forward into the door handle. She swung it open and shut again in a few breathless seconds. _It'll be alright, don't worry. _The faceless voice was teasingly sweet, and at its beckoning, Tea made a seat for herself on top of shoes and against the soft fabric of suit pants. Anxiety rose with a vengeance as heavy footfall gave way to the creak of a door opening. She could not think of escape, only survival. There was no strength of spirit to help her envision her apartment back home, a paradise that awaited her if she could keep quiet enough to fool him. _When he finds you, do as he says. _It was the last time the feminine voice had any sort of presence in the room. _**When**_. Tea nearly choked on the bile rising in her throat.

"Yugi-boy," the American drawled, "Calm yourself, you'll be sick."

She could feel the kiss he pressed to the boy's forehead as the ceiling light was flipped on, brightness leaking through the gap between the closet door and carpet, chasing her feet as she hugged her knees to her chest. He was going to find her.

"Now where has your sister run off to?" His tone was suddenly flat and dangerous; Tea pressed both hands over her mouth and nose to quiet her breaths. "You didn't send anyone _else_ on a game of hide and seek, did you?"

Yugi squeaked in fright, trying to find his voice through tears, "No." He wheezed, "I swear."

Pegasus's purring voice left a shiver stuck between her neck and spine, "Don't worry, I believe you." She didn't just want to run or escape anymore, she wanted to vanish.

"Tea wouldn't try anything like that, she really wouldn't."

"Don't try to save her like you did your grandfather just now, you barely managed that."

Her heartache dissipated at the mention of Yugi's grandpa, "Daddy." She mouthed, the strange woman's voice reverberating in her head, _when he finds you, do as he says. _"Daddy…" She repeated, though no louder. In truth she did not want to face the man at all, wanted to indulge his wish of being their father even less. And yet she was cowering in a closet, coerced into hiding by the childish fear of being caught in a private room. It was this same fear, she realized, that pushed her to be found sooner rather than later, as if leading him to her would negate the bulk of his anger. She remembered her own father's stern, patient voice saying, 'you won't be in trouble if you tell me the truth.' It was a demand of the five year old, be honest. The strange woman's voice carried a similar warning; _give yourself up_, it said, _surrender_.

Pegasus was not merciful like a father, the ache in her cheek and shoulders reiterated that. But if she did not emerge to take whatever punishment awaited her, it would be Yugi who suffered for it. She forced back a sob, and with it, the feeling of wanting to disappear, ceasing to hear, feel, and exist. Deep down, if she made herself admit it, she knew exactly what she was running from: not what would be done to her, but the man who would be doing it.

"I'm here." She choked, because giving up entirely meant leaving the others when they needed her most, because even if Pegasus was the devil, she owed her friends more courage than that.

The world stopped, Pegasus only moved to press a softened finger across Yugi's lips, hushing him. The man seemed like he'd been struck, she could only hope with compassion, or reason, "Tea." He called softly into the stillness.

"I'm here." Before the words had fully left her mouth, he thrust the door open, leaving her blinking in the artificial light.

"Have you lost your mind?" His hands pulled her from the closet and into an embrace. "You had me worried half to death!" She was terrified to find he had not been moved by reason, but by perpetual delusion.

She forced her chin up over his shoulder to meet Yugi's wide, violet eyes. His face was stained with fresh tears and his hair was more disheveled than usual. It hit her all at once that Yugi was not in his bedroom either, but in this foreign, unending space. Her friend's obvious distress pulled her from her musings, but did not provide any filter for the babble that began to seep from her mouth.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. I don't know how I got here and when I woke up I panicked, I really didn't touch anything I – "

"Shh." He stroked her hair patiently, "It's alright now, I forgive you." There was a strange glint in his eye as he stepped back from her, and for a moment she wondered if this man was Pegasus Crawford at all.

"I…"

"I know you slept the day away but you should try and rest." He nudged her gently toward the bed. For a moment she was plagued by the worst thought imaginable. She pictured his body squirming and writhing on top of her, choking her against the blankets to muffle her cries of protest….

"I'm not tired." She mumbled, backing away nervously.

"I know something that'll help." The humming that invaded her ears moments later did little to calm her. As the melody became a song, her knees went weak and threatened to send her crashing to the carpeted floor, she glanced back at Yugi to gauge the distance to the bed, reaching out an instinctive hand to steady herself. She was still grasping for air when Crawford's hands set her firmly on her feet, song uninterrupted.

The dried trail of tears on Yugi's face meant he had been afraid for her, but she still remembered Pegasus's comment about his grandfather, and desperately wanted to ask what had happened. As he urged her into bed beside Yugi, who muttered an apology before turning his back to her, she took in the look of normalcy on the CEO's face. She drew the covers around herself, trying not to blush at the uncomfortable closeness between her body and Yugi's. Pegasus lingered for a moment, giving them one last tender look before crossing the room to turn off the light.

If every fiber of her being hadn't known better, she'd have deemed the CEO charming. But in this room, in this castle, everything was an elaborate lie. In the last moment before darkness surrounded them, she realized that Pegasus's truth would never be hers or Yugi's.

In their world even the lullabies were a lie, and the monsters very much real.

* * *

His apprehension upon entering the dining hall was quelled by smoldering betrayal. He had expected his entrance with Yugi and Tea to isolate the group, to breed mistrust of at least some potency, but it had all been needless worry. The entire group had obviously heard news of the previous night's events, and while the blue-eyed CEO sent scathing thoughts into traitorous skulls, the remaining four sat in silent anxiety. Somehow they had managed to communicate with one another enough to relay that Yugi had taken a foolish chance, but were unable to guess the outcome. It had kept them awake with worry and anger, plastered to their faces long after morning had come.

For a few long moments the head of estate was silent, contemplating the holes in his security. Somewhere a rat was letting information slip between captives, whether in sympathy or stupidity he did not care, all that mattered was punishing the perpetrator. For now the offense was little more than a misdemeanor, after all, he much preferred the children grow attached to one another as siblings rather than be divided. But this did not dismiss the fact that job descriptions for Industrial Illusions dictated absolute, unwavering loyalty, and that a breach of contract was something both parties should take very seriously.

He barely sighed, folding a napkin on his lap and redirecting his focus to the children. Seto drew his attention, not because of the raging, defiant thoughts attacking him from the opposite end of the table, but because his face was covered in faint but distinctive stubble. He frowned despite himself. When had that happened?

"Kaiba-boy." He sang out, plate empty and untouched, "I think it's time you let Daddy teach you how to shave." He smiled at the thought of shaving cream in a Santa beard around the younger's face.

"Spare me your delusions Pegasus, if your second-rate bathroom had razors I'd have shaved. I've been a big boy for years." The last sentence was so alive with mockery the younger almost spat it.

"Don't make me bend you over this table."

"First rule of business, don't make threats you have no intention of keeping."

"Oh Kaiba-boy, you really shouldn't test me." He pushed his chair back against the hardwood floor, eyes meeting the child's in a deadlock, "When you wind up keeping yourself from little Mokuba until you're too old to remember him, you'll be begging for more of the belt to tame your tongue." Kaiba set his gaze straight ahead, steadying his hand to take a sip of coffee, "You've already been warned about your smart mouth, this is usually the part where you say, 'I'm sorry, it won't happen again Daddy,' unless of course you want to be punished more severely." Pegasus's gaze was no longer resting on Seto, but on Mokuba.

"I'm sorry...Daddy, for being fresh." Seto muttered.

"And?" The elder pressed, pushing his chair back into the table.

"It won't happen again."

"I should certainly hope not."

Appetite depleted, it was all he could do to pour himself a cup of strong coffee. Almost as long as he could remember he had pictured them no older than eight or ten, though they must be at least fifteen. Save for Mokuba, the treasured youngest, he would sooner be sending them to college than summer camp. He wasn't sure why, these were the exact and only children he wanted, but for some reason it was almost disheartening to acknowledge they were adolescents. He considered calling up the research team to send half of them on a chase for the fountain of youth. But more than anything he wanted Cecelia, some fleeting, tangible embodiment of his beloved. He was trying to barter feathers for gold, and the only thing holding him back from further outrageous demands of divinity, was the knowledge that he was already asking the world.

"After such deplorable behavior I should be anything but generous." He dabbed non-existent coffee residue from the edges of his mouth, "But it just so happens I have business to attend to, take my little rascals downstairs and assume the usual."

The remaining guards, on edge at the mysterious absence of Kyoshi, murmured briefly amongst themselves, "Do you think it's wise to leave them alone?" Croquet questioned, straightening his tie.

"_Why not_?" Pegasus growled, rising from his seat with definitive arrogance, "You're letting them talk which undermines isolation, if you're all going to fail at such a simple task I'd say it's time you were re-assigned." He held Makoto's gaze for a moment, "Take them downstairs." He repeated slowly, "Where there are not rabbit holes to wonderland, and leave thoughts of babysitting behind. Your real jobs will be waiting." The aging guard looked desperately to the head of security, who less-than-subtlety averted his eyes.

_He knows, _avoidance screeched. _Now what? _The nervous clearing of a throat replied. Only the figurehead knew, and he was disappearing before any of his audience had enough chance to process the true intent of his demand.

* * *

The room awaiting them at the bottom of the stairs was just a narrow corridor away from the dungeon, constructed from the same impenetrable stone. It was plain, but more accommodating than the cells they had known weeks before. There was a set of metal folding chairs tucked into a conference table, on top of which was a single legal tablet and pen. A test had begun the moment Pegasus spoke, and any inclinations they had about what it might mean were affirmed moments ago, when they were left to their own devices.

"We're right back where we started." Tristan noted, pacing the room. "We have no idea what he really wants and obviously he's leaving us alone to see how many of us break." For a moment he was distracted by the way their shadows danced and mingled in the dim illumination of a single light bulb, hanging fixtureless near the center of the room.

"It was meant to distract us, not divide us." Ryou turned to Yugi and took a seat at the table, "Joey got worried when you disappeared for so long, he tried to explain but we only managed bits and pieces."

The shorter swallowed thickly, "To be honest, everything that happened seems surreal to me. You'll want to sit down." The group hesitated for a moment, but eventually huddled closely around the table. "To make a long story short, I saw a connection in one of Pegasus's cartoons where a symbol on a manhole matched one on a vent in the bathroom. I thought if I could navigate the passageway it might give us some kind of escape route or leverage."

Kaiba jerked forward in his seat, shaking with impending outrage, "You were prepared to lead yourself to safety without a word to the rest of us?"

"No!" Both Yugi and Joey exclaimed, "I was looking for a blind spot, something Pegasus didn't guard as well because he counted on us overlooking it. I could never leave you guys here, and even if I had found an escape, you forget Pegasus still has my grandpa. The whole reason I entered this tournament was to fight for my grandfather's soul."

The elder cast him a hardened stare, unconvinced, "You can cut the 'all-on-this-together' crap. If you honestly had no intention of getting yourself out, you'd have waited until you talked to the rest of us."

"How was he supposed to do that?" Tea snapped in her friend's defense, "We're constantly guarded and trying to tell us about it risks any advantage it may have offered. All of us want out of here, just because he saw a chance and latched onto it doesn't mean he was going to leave us for dead. Don't act like you'd have done anything differently."

"Arguing is wasting time and helping Pegasus." Tristan reminded the two, "What happened Yugi?"

The other gave a nod of thanks, "Keeping right brought me to a section of the castle I didn't recognize. I got out of the shaft, took a left, and followed the corridors until I came to a final divide. To my left was a hallway of servant's quarters, I'm guessing, because one of them spotted me. To the right was a hallway the guard told me was off-limits, thinking I was a lost employee. At the end of the corridor there was a window, but it was too high up and I didn't have time to see what part of the grounds it overlooked. I ran into the last room on the right, the door had a rose and laurel leaves engraved on it." He paused, momentarily suspended in the memory of Kyoshi's body plummeting into the ocean, "I…Pegasus knew I would come. He trapped Kyoshi in front of a connecting door…" He fought with his constricting throat, moisture forming behind his eyes, "If I tried to go into the next room it would kill him."

"Yug…" Joey squeezed his shoulder comfortingly, "Don't sweat it bud, Pegasus is a nut case, it had nothing to do with you."

"He killed him." Yugi forced through closed lips, tears spilling down his face, "I didn't believe anything would happen at first and he…he killed him to prove a point."

The tall blonde put a full arm around Yugi, pulling him close and doing his best to recover his nerve, "Listen to me." He knew he didn't sound brave, but he managed to keep his voice from shaking, "Pegasus would've gotten rid of him regardless, you know that."

Tea nodded through the weight in her chest, "It wasn't your fault."

"So was that the end of it?" Kaiba asked, though they would never confront him, the others noticed the CEO place his hand over Mokuba's in comfort.

"Of course not, I ran off! You think he just let me go with a smile? He has my grandfather's soul and he…he was going to tear up the card."

"What?!" Joey cried out, nearly knocking the table over as he shoved it back in anger, "He didn't hurt Gramps, did he Yug? What about Serenity did he – "

"He put it in his pocket."

"But he didn't tear it?"

"No. I begged him not to, I…I told him…I loved him." Yugi pressed both hands over his face, wiping the warm tears from his skin, "I didn't know what else to do, and for some reason he pulled back."

The cold became intense as minutes ticked away in silence, each person digesting what they had heard. Even Kaiba couldn't blame Yugi for the lengths he went to in his endeavor, after all, for Mokuba he had almost…

"It doesn't make sense." He said, freeing himself from reflection, "He killed a man who meant nothing to you, just to prove he could. But when he had a chance to destroy you he had a change of heart?" His lip curled in disgust, "Something's wrong here. Pegasus has already used emotional torture to his full and complete advantage, there's no way that psychotic buffoon would switch the game around. Unless your grandfather is leverage he's not willing to lose yet, unless he needs him and the Wheeler girl to keep stringing us along for something." He slammed his fist down on the table, "God damn it, why are we here?!"

"We still don't have the answer, but there's one thing Yugi's encounter showed us for certain, Pegasus won't do anything to cause us long-term harm right now. Why is irrelevant if we can use this to buck the system."

"What are you saying, Bakura?" Tristan replied.

"We have to do whatever we can to get more freedom. More freedom means more access, and more access means a better chance of getting off this island. Right now he's pulling his punches so it's as good a chance as any to come up with a strategy."

"He drugged my brother, did you forget about that!" Mokuba spoke up defensively, "We can't just do whatever we want, Seto pushed and Pegasus made him sick, Yugi pushed and Pegasus almost killed his grandpa!"

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but Bakura's right." Tristan cut in, "Sure Pegasus has done a few things to prove he means business, but none of them have hurt us irreversibly. Being sick is far from being dead, and Kyoshi is a far cry from Grandpa. The danger of Pegasus as a basket case is real, the danger of his threats isn't."

"Threats don't have to mean death, Tristan. There are a million things worse than death." Tea reminded him, shocking even herself with the words, "We're back to gaining his trust when he knows all of our motives, and we know nothing of his."

The white haired boy moved his chair back from the table, a hideous screech of metal on stone, "Maybe this will help." Hands on his lap extended into the light, gasps immersing around him as he revealed the gold, glinting trophy.

* * *

The small former study was exactly as he'd left it, a few stands of Yugi's hair lingered, trinkets of his victory. If there had not been an audience of remaining guards, he might've picked them up and wrapped them around his fingers to inhale the lingering scent of citrus. As things were, he did not have the time, nor the solitude to allow these distractions. He advanced wordlessly around the trap, and pressing hard against the latch of the engraved door, swung it open to reveal a tiny room.

"Wait here." He called over his shoulder, closing the door behind him and facing the chained item just ahead. Even a few feet from the artifact, he could feel the residual energy of a strong spirit oozing from the inside, filling his mind with tiny flickers of wrath. "Even if you don't turn out to be essential, I can't leave you lying around to be apprehended." He caressed the edge of the object, mocking the thick aura of tangible fury in the room, "I'm no novice, you know. The only thing that can come of you is pain. I've nothing left to lose, there's no sense in me abandoning the eye. But little Yugi, baby Ryou, defenseless children succumbing to the power of things they can't begin to comprehend. That would be a sin against nature." His laugh escaped in a deep, robotic spill, "My sons will not suffer the things I have."

He grabbed the chain, rubbing it against his palm before taking the millennium puzzle in hand. His eye lit up in response, a heat wave crashing through his veins and focusing in a sharp, searing jolt across his forehead. He could see a purple figment, edges engulfed in flame, eye of Anubis on its forehead, beckoning.

"An empty threat, you've no host and you're three thousand years out of practice." A smirk clung to his lips as he pulled himself from the vision, forcing the muscles in his arm to contract into a tight fist, keeping a hand from pressing to his forehead in relief. The door swung open and he moved to stand in the middle of the larger room.

"I have very specific instructions for you." He told the waiting group, pausing to work the middle piece of the puzzle free. "I want you to – " He stopped, doubling half way over as the breath was forced from his body. Whatever spirit inhabited the item was fighting with everything to keep from being dismembered, "I want you to take these pieces and scatter them throughout the castle, discretely." He worked a few more free, undeterred by the elder spirit who had taken on the image of Yugi's body.

"Why not throw them into the ocean or something?" The youngest guard, Yukio, piped up.

"They are instrumental." Pegasus quipped, "This item can't be useless to me, it just has to be thoroughly inaccessible to little Yugi."

"But sir, the current arrangement is very secure, the room is no less a threat to the boy just because he's -"

"That's twice in one morning you've questioned my decisions, Croquet. Do you need a reminder of your place? _Again_?" The lackey fell silent, face burning as his shame was exploited for the younger, less experienced employees. "I obviously can't trust you to keep him off its trail in one piece, at least if I separate it he'll have less of a spiritual pull to the location, and I'll have more time to do damage control when you screw up."

The head of security took four pieces into his hand, "The rest will remain here?"

Pegasus nodded, making his way into the hall through the sea of curious onlookers, "The placement of the items involves Croquet and I, everyone else go back to your usual duties. Any volunteers can attend the children; I have plans for them shortly." He turned to face an approaching young woman, "Keiko, the ring?" He held out a hand expectantly.

"Actually sir, it's..." Hazel eyes wandered to the hardwood floor, "Gone."

"_What?_"

* * *

"Are you sure you can trust that thing?" Even as Tristan's obvious skepticism became real, Bakura could feel the overwhelming power of the ring, pulling, testing, tempting. The rasping growl of despair evoked a turmoil the boy had fought with for many years. Memories resurfaced in a blood-stained haze, and trembling fingers sent the item clattering to the ground, "Bakura? Hey, Ryou, you okay?" Tristan crouched in front of his roommate, waving a hand in front of unresponsive eyes.

"What's happening to him?" Tea worriedly demanded, to which Tristan could only shrug.

"God no." Tremors split the veil of tension like the soft caress of a knife, ring glowing abandoned on stone floor, entrapping its host. _I know you're in there, Ryou. Come back to me. Come back to me. Comebacktome. _A sob broke the metaphysical boundary of their two souls, a barrier to the stronger, malevolent half, who he had refused to acknowledge before. Now that his friends knew the horrible secret, and seemed to accept him – the real him – anyway, he could fight off the spirit by refusing him access to his body, at least, as long as he could manage it. But pain tore through his chest like lightning and the outline of the ring began to appear through his clothes, physically, he was too overwhelmed to focus on anything else.

"Knock it off!" Kaiba snapped somewhere to his right.

"That spirit can't hurt you if you don't let it!" Tristan coached, grabbing the boy's shoulders firmly and joining Yugi and Joey's chant of encouragement.

Their voices buzzed around his head, but all he could see was the flash of headlights and the spinning of tires on saturated pavement. A truck, a collision, the smaller of two bodies projected through the windshield.

"Make it stop."

He was sure Amane had pleaded too, in the instant the blurred vehicle hurtling toward them, before glass tattooed her veins and filled her mouth with blood. It was immediate, they told him. His sister had felt no physical pain – now he asked himself if it was being projected unto his living body, if that was the case, if it spared her any agony at all, he would bear this. A low moan left a shudder in his throat. If he could.

"Do you think it's Pegasus, do you think Pegasus made the spirit stronger somehow?" Tea looked to Yugi for any answer he could give.

The shorter of the two stood, paralyzed, behind Tristan, "No…whatever spirit inhabits that ring…it's not like the spirit of the puzzle."

"Enough with the fear montaging! Listen kid, whatever this is really about, man up and face it!"

"Seto!" Mokuba scolded, two hands grabbing his brother's arm and pulling him back into his seat.

He tried not to beg, "Get out." He muttered, weakly twisting his torso, spinning his arms gracelessly as if to emphasize the muted point he had strength left to make. "Get out." _Don't keep fighting me, Ryou. I can make this easier on you. I can get you out of here. Isn't that what you want? Don't you want __**out**__? _ He pushed the spirit back blindly. Usually when it appeared, there was a physical representation of the apparition in his mind, but all he could see as the ring burned its usual place into his chest, was his mother's brain swelling against her skull. Even as reality played their voices in greater number and volume, you could smell the putrid, rotting flesh of his memory, taste the blood and decay and -

"If it is Pegasus, we only have a few minutes to figure out what he wants."

"Is that all you can think about right now? Jesus Kaiba!"

"I can't work fucking magic." The CEO snapped, clearly rattled despite his apparently aloof resolve, "Besides the grander problem is motive, I'm beginning to wonder if this family thing is more than a game."

"I know you're more background noise right now, but at least talk straight rich boy!" Joey chided, still more focused on reaching Bakura than on Seto's train of thought.

"Outside of business the man doesn't have a rational bone in his body. I thought even he would have a reasonable explanation for why we're here, but if he's just a pathetic recluse looking for a family, we're at a severe disadvantage. There's no way for us to get to what he wants before he does. We have no leverage."

"There has to be more to it than that, if it was about a family he could just adopt."

"You forget that he's a spoiled, self-serving narcissist who's been living alone in a castle for god knows how many years."

"He as a wife." Mokuba reminded him.

"So he says. I don't buy it for a second."

"So if he lied about his wife it means he likes the way things are, but if he likes the way things are he has to have an ulterior motive." The younger Kaiba was confused by his brother's contradiction, and as the others battled the spirit of the ring, some part of them questioned Kaiba as well.

"If the woman in the paintings rejected him, he's just a jilted artist with a god complex looking to add more people to his cesspool of misery."

"Then why not keep our souls imprisoned?"

"Because what bitter, vengeful lover doesn't want a flock of little white doves to reiterate he'll never be alone?"

Bakura thrashed wildly in his chair, clawing at his throat and chest, "I don't want this." His friends kept the spirit at bay longer than he alone could, but their strength and courage would only hold so long. The slip into madness was close; he could feel it in every burning tendril of his insides.

From beyond the stone door they heard several pairs of footsteps approaching, one a decent way ahead of the others. Fury had made his tone unrecognizable, but as he threw torches and décor from the walls and path ahead of him, there was no question who had come.

"Help!" Tea choked, forcefully quieting herself. Fear for Bakura pushed her to the abductor for guidance, but she was too afraid of the other's retaliation to commit.

"If Pegasus wants that thing, don't you think we should hide it or something?" Mokuba whispered, trying to piece together his brother's logic. The elder wanted to nod, but found he could not. As much as he knewthey needed that ring, he could not ignore the cold sweat of his body telling him to get the _fuck_ away from it.

The door hit the wall with such force it shook the room, Pegasus's body, rigid and heaving from exertion, visibly deflated as he took in the scene. The timid, soft-spoken boy he had bruised the first day was screaming bloody murder. Yugi was crying too, pleading the same way he had the night before, hallow, and broken, and defeated.

He felt Cecelia's soft skin against his own, her hair on his cheek as they embraced one more time in the tomb of false promises. Tears were seeping from Yugi's huge, wide eyes, staining his innocent face the way – the way the last tear leaked from his now disfigured face. Holding her. _Pegasus. _The whisper nearly brought him to tears again, but his eye focused too hard on the face in front of him to do anything else, it was desperate and contorted and…it was saying something. Screaming.

Mind too stimulated by sight to absorb any other sense, he read the boy's lips. "Take it." He was saying, "Please take it." His eyes traveled to the ring at his feet, what he had come for all along. Some deep part of him was flooded with relief, his child had not found the ring, the ring had found him.

"Enough!" He roared, stepping down on the metal hard. There was a flash of light, a familiar scream and fire, burning him, swallowing him as his eye rest fixated on Yugi. The demonic voice filled his head; _you have no place in this. _He was not young or naïve enough to back down, _you can't have my son, you coward. _In a shadow game the two were probably evenly matched, but the entity of the ring did not intend to play fair. Pegasus could force even the strongest spirit out of his mind, memory stealing was something he had perfected years ago, but the ring was invading his soul, enslaving it at the core.

The black figure flipped through his tragedies like newspaper pages, weakening the mortal's resistance quickly by exploiting his grief. And then, all at once, the blonde woman of his memories shoved hard until he was out of the man's headspace, dissolving into nothingness against the stone creases of the wall. He reassembled a tall, shapeless mass and lunged for her before the world descended into silence and the presence faded.

Pegasus dropped to his knees, ring dormant at his side, devoid the spirit who had latched onto someone no longer alive. As he fought for his breath, he shoved it toward the doorway, away from Ryou who slumped forward into his chest. Long, muscular arms fumbled for a moment before clasping around the boy, holding on for dear life.

"It's okay." He crooned, stroking the child's hair, "You're safe." If a tear had not escaped the man's good eye, Kaiba would've dismissed the crack in his voice as strain, "No one will ever hurt you again." He sat cross legged, positioning Bakura sideways and drawing him closer. Palm to the side of his head, he hushed tenderly against the child's cheek, smothering him with soft words.

_I never wanted it to be like this. _He drew a deep breath to calm himself. _If it kills me, there is going to be joy in this house. _It was a lie. There was no joy without her.

The millennium ring was a mystery he did not want to unravel. There was a spirit; its nature did not matter, needing a host. In Egypt, the empty shell of an old man lay in wait for this exact type of crisis. The resistance within the item would be gone, he could safely bring it back and the children would be none the wiser. But as he held Bakura, crying and hysterical, he remembered the first tears on his jacket, in a dining room, saying 'please don't hurt him.' He remembered the second tears against his jacket, in a study, 'please don't hurt him.' It would be easier, in many ways, if Solomon Motou was no more, and the spirit of the ring returned to the land of the people who knew it best.

"Get it out of here."

"T-to where sir?" Croquet sputtered.

"I don't care, buy a house and hire a keeper if you have to, just get it off my island."

He was a thief of many things but a child's last hope was not among them.

* * *

"If he's two people then we're all two people.  
What does that say about identity?"  
-Dr. Remy Hadley (House S5 E24 "Both Sides Now")

* * *

Don't worry, the group will continue piecing things together next chapter; there is much more to come for all of them (and I do mean _all_ of them.) As always, thank you for reading.


	9. Identity

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Yugioh, nor do I claim rights to any of the affiliated characters.

**Warnings/Notes: **A huge thank you to everyone supporting this story, you guys amaze me.

* * *

_**Chapter Nine: Identity**_

* * *

Three months into captivity they had no stronger inclination of his motive. From the day the spirit of the ring became a permanent fissure in their routine, there was only one thing they could say with certainty: something in Pegasus Crawford had changed.

When the scenery through the dining room windows became muted gray in the morning and a hopeless veil of darkness by dinner, he began to talk more. Sometimes he wove life lessons into innocent comments, picking at character flaws in varying degrees of intrusion. For a time, Seto managed to fool him with false memories he nurtured in the night, perfecting every notion of realism. As the others began to catch on, even that reprieve caved in around them. He did not need to explore their memories for the deepest secrets of their beings; he merely needed to examine the cards he had taken the first day of their ordeal.

When he had pacified them with superficial chatter about the weather, or an approaching holiday of gluttony called Thanksgiving, an uncomfortable character study inevitably followed. But as days put distance between their encounter with the apparition, kindness took root in him. He joked about Tea's picky eating, told Tristan and Bakura life was too short to spend fighting after an argument left them silent and conflicted. It was a slow descent into the mundane dynamic of a family, but they could feel it creeping up on them like humidity before a rainstorm.

As their walls began to bend, Pegasus's defense wavered in turn. He left them alone, unguarded, for a period he assured them would be brief, "I know you'll miss me dearly." He cooed, black cellphone clasped in his right hand, "But I'll be back in a New York minute." He seemed to enjoy taunting all but Seto with expressions they couldn't comprehend. It barely mattered as he turned on his heel and swept out of the eerily familiar stone room. Half of the group was left clinging to hope that the ring would appear to help break them free, the other half sat in turmoil, praying to be spared that atrocity.

"Why do I get the feeling he's off on business, and that it isn't paperwork or conference calls?" Joey slumped into a chair and tilted his head over the back, focusing hard on the ceiling.

"I know what you mean." Yugi replied, taking a seat beside him, "But I don't feel as nervous about it as I should." He admitted, somewhat concerned by the easing anxiety in his stomach.

"What he's doing doesn't matter until we're faced with it." Kaiba reminded them as he and Mokuba took their usual places around the table. "We need to deal with why we're here first, and the rest will come soon enough. He can't keep it a secret forever." The doubt surrounding him was more apparent than he had expected, but he continued anyway, "We need to know exactly what happened the night Pegasus took you back to his room, Bakura." In truth, Ryou had done nothing but dwell on the evening. He had fallen into Pegasus's arms after the struggle with the ring, and as time progressed, the events that followed became clearer and clearer.

"I've been trying to get my head around it for weeks. I'll tell you everything I remember, but to be honest I was so afraid at the time I couldn't think straight, I don't know how much happened and how much I invented."

As much as he disliked the answer, Kaiba could not ignore the image of his stepfather wielding a strap that sung through the air on its way to meet his flesh, it had been many years, but he remembered vulnerability. A shiver settled under his skin, and as he hardened his gaze to address Bakura, he felt a faint inclination of empathy.

"Just tell us everything." He decided, "Eventually it'll lead somewhere."

Ryou nodded in agreement, "To be brief, he did a lot of talking. Walking back the hall he told me what you've already heard. It would be okay, he would be right there and I wouldn't have to worry anymore. He said he could fix this, and he kept telling me not to cry. It's hard to explain to someone who's never experienced it, but I couldn't sleep, I needed to be awake and moving. He sat me down on a bed anyway, told me this wasn't my fault. He thought I was running from nightmares, that maybe holding me tight enough would keep them at bay, but I really just needed to be in control. That's how it's always been, staying awake, trying to be aware of the spirit suddenly stirring, thinking that if I can just push it down, and push it down, it won't eat me up inside."

Across from him, Yugi battled with thoughts of the spirit that used to share his body. He knew that struggle acutely during the first few days of Duelist Kingdom, and remembered every horrible detail of surrender. Some part of this intruder, of maybe some part of him, had clawed its way to the front of his mind. Until he was pushed out entirely. Until he was nothing.

"So you refused to sleep." Seto confirmed, "Did he push further?"

The other boy shook his head, "That's the strange part." His eyes drifted to the table in front of them for a moment, trying to piece together the details, "I told him I wanted to control the spirit but didn't know how. Until now I barely fought with it, or recalled it coming and going at all. I'm not proud of this, but I told him if he wanted the ring so badly he should take it and be done." He wiped a hand over his face, sitting up straighter and finally facing the group again, "He told me, word for word, that it didn't work that way. The item would be his, but whatever resided there had latched itself onto me and was feeding off my energy. He would help me fight for my freedom if I asked, but the best way to fend it off was to give it what it wanted. It's not your battle, he said, don't fight it. I still don't understand."

Tristan shifted uncomfortably in his seat, "That spirit took over when Yugi was dueling Pegasus and tried to make off with Mokuba's body. It's looking for a shell so it can do whatever it wants with no resistance."

"Then why does it keep coming back to Bakura?" Tea asked worriedly.

"No idea." Tristan shrugged.

"It doesn't matter." Seto reminded them again, clearly agitated, "This means Pegasus only wants the items to keep them out of our reach. He told someone to send the ring off and keep an eye on it, probably so it won't find its way back to Bakura. If he's kept the two of you here for those things, he wouldn't let them go so easily. We're back to a strictly delusional lunatic. Did he keep up the "Daddy" routine?"

Ryou nodded, "With conviction, some part of me wanted to believe he challenged the spirit to protect me, that he'd keep protecting me."

"He wants to be a father, but why to us?" Mokuba reiterated slowly. "Maybe he's another Gozaburo and wants an heir to his company? He picked you because you know what you're doing, big bro."

Kaiba tussled Mokuba's hair at the compliment, but promptly shook his head, "Business and unnecessary complications don't mix. To begin with a company needs one heir, not seven. Anyway, he's fought tooth and nail for Kaiba Corp, he's not about to take the fun and humiliation out of stealing it by handing me Industrial Illusions."

"Maybe someone else wanted us to disappear." Joey suggested, "You and Yugi are the two top duelists in the world, and being runner-up in Duelist Kingdom, I could pose a threat too."

"Why would Pegasus do someone else's dirty work?" Tristan inquired, skeptical.

"Probably has something to do with him being a creep." Joey replied flatly.

"There's too much press coverage surrounding the tournament for him to think he could pull that off." Tristan put in, "Unless he was supposed to beat Yugi and it didn't work out. Was the final duel televised?"

"In the shadow realm?" Joey quipped, "Of course it wasn't televised."

"Shut up!" Kaiba snapped, "We don't have time to listen to you two bicker like a married couple, he drug this out too long for something like that. Maybe Pegasus isn't as calculating as I give him credit for, the incentive could be purely emotional."

"I doubt it." Ryou piped up, defeated, "The woman in the paintings didn't reject him. He's got photographs of their wedding in his bedroom." Yugi and Tea looked to one another in shock; they'd been too panicked during their time in Pegasus's suite to do more than wish they were somewhere else. Bakura had been collected enough to investigate, even after all that'd happened.

"You should've started with that." Kaiba chided, satisfaction passing over his eyes for a moment, "He has that woman in every room but we've never actually seen her."

"You don't think she's…" Yugi trailed off as if the final word were choking him.

"Dead?" Kaiba finished grimly. "Unfortunately for us, it's a distinct possibility."

"I don't get it, how does kidnapping us make him feel better?" Mokuba asked, turning his wide eyed gaze to Seto.

"She could've died in childbirth." He said, hands flicking nervously on the table.

"He doesn't have kids." Mokuba observed. "We'd know by now even if he'd been hiding them."

"Then complications during a pregnancy, miscarriage, a child born still. Even if he didn't lose his wife and child at the same time, it would make sense if – "

"Just stop." Tea interrupted, hands moving to mask the tears on her cheeks, "I can't do this. This isn't helping anything."

"We can at least reason with him." Joey reminded, squeezing her shoulder in comfort.

"What are we supposed to say?" She groaned, sniffling, "I'm sorry about your wife but she wouldn't want this? Keeping us here won't bring back your real family?"

"Something like that." Kaiba replied, eyes narrowing to hers.

She shrugged herself fiercely away from Joey's touch, "Well I'm not heartless enough to throw the man's dead wife and baby in his face – "

"He's been playing a game with our relatives, dead or alive, since we got here. Wake up!"

"I'm not gonna sit here and agree that stooping to his level is the answer! If we do this we're no better than him – "

"Tea." Yugi cut in calmly, holding a hand up to draw her attention, "I know you're upset, but talking to Pegasus isn't the same as attacking him. Therapists make a career out of talking people down in a crisis…what is this really about?" She blinked at him, more tears pooling behind her eyes and spilling down her face. Her hands had flown wildly about the space, crashing into the table and bruising two of her knuckles. She had been hysterical, and it could only get worse.

"I can't do this anymore." She sobbed, clenching both fists to stop herself from breaking down entirely, "I spend every spare moment in a room alone. I can't talk to you outside a few whispers between cartoons. That man has been the only person I've talked to for the better part of a month. I thought I could fake attachment long enough to get out, but I'm losing my grip on everything. Pegasus hasn't been cruel to me; I don't want to hurt him."

The room sat in stunned silence. None of them had considered how maddening it would be to spend their idle hours alone, having the comfort of a roommate; they forgot she had been left by herself. Maybe Pegasus had planned it that way, so this exact thing would happen and she would go running to him for companionship and comfort. Whether he had or he hadn't, she was not going to last much longer in solitude.

"Just keep yourself together. If we try to bring any of this up right now he'll get angry and it'll blow up in our faces. He has to trust us, at least a little, before we can find out if this is his only motive." As much as their hearts ached for Tea, her friends knew this was true.

"It'll get better." Yugi assured, "He'll let us do more things as a group and we'll be able to talk more. All we have to do is suggest something that makes it seem like we're playing along, a board game, a movie…being a family isn't acting for the five of us, we just have to refocus our conversations onto casual things. Until we can get through this, we just have to pretend everything's normal."

"Listen, Christmas is coming soon." Joey spoke up, "Just keep telling yourself we'll be home for the holiday. If you thought secret Santa was hard before, think what it'll be like when we're all scrambling for gifts at the last second."

The teens shared a smile, before they knew it they were collectively reminiscing as Mokuba chuckled in the background and Kaiba did his best not to scoff. As the CEO inwardly explored hundreds of possible reasons for their capture, he could not help but be angry with himself for not seeing this sooner. Beyond that, while he dissected the details of their future moves and conversations, he began to form a timeline of events, and as it stretched further and further, he wondered how many of the others would struggle to survive that long.

* * *

He cursed the keeper of the castle with every syllable of his tongue. Many hours he had lingered in darkness, seeking solace, lusting after freedom. His patience had been rewarded with light, sounds, and flesh, more than he could've hoped for. After suffering the ceaseless unknown, he had found some shred of meaning. In an instant the clever, deplorable man had robbed him of that. When the puzzle was broken, blackness crept in around him until he could not even imagine the structure of a room to contain himself. Seconds before, loyalty burned through every limb of his shapeless body, protective instincts flaring the more the child ignored his presence. He had been mere feet away, what had stopped the boy from coming? He did not know, and tried in every agonizing moment, not to care.

No matter how thoroughly he had earned his freedom, the outside world was gone again. As the slow drag of eternity stretched out, he succumbed to the existence he had known before release. A spirit of some five thousand years, strong and wise, fell into madness. He would not call this despair, because even in sloppy, uneven divides, his soul could recall the memories of Yugi Motou. Some small part of him treasured glimpses of humanity in happiness, nostalgia, and fear, because they were more than thoughts then. He could not feel them anymore than the anger he contrived from circumstance, but he could remember the faintest inkling of warmth, of an experience, that kept him from losing whoever he had become.

_What's keeping you here? _He heard the soft whisper before he could register her presence. Unlike him, she was a vision of flesh and sinew, a blonde woman with haunting eyes engulfed in the purple radiance of the lifeless.

_Who are you? _He demanded.

The woman blinked at him, quizzical and patient, _at the moment that's irrelevant. _She replied in a firm but dismissive tone, _you've no reason to hide from me, I'm the last thing here that can hurt you. _

_I've nothing to hide._

_Why have you come here?_

_I don't know. _He answered honestly, hoping she might leave; _I was brought forth from a puzzle by a boy named Yugi Motou, the owner of this house has taken him from me. _

There was a pregnant pause as she turned her back to him. More than anything, even peace, she wanted to see her husband happy. This spirit was just a further reminder of the unimaginable extent to which Pegasus had lost his way. A family was one thing, she had felt a strange flicker of happiness at the mention of children, but she didn't truly want this. At least, she tried to convince herself she didn't.

_No face or name of your own. _She noted, a strange new edge to her voice, a bit like guilt, or maybe… _You poor thing…this far gone and you can't rest?_

_I have never known rest. _He admitted. _Have you?_

She gave a small turn of her head; _I'm still waiting for someone. _

_Ah. _A wave of understanding passed over them, and she knew he had her pinned down. _Do you know Pegasus Crawford?_

_Yes, very well. _

_How can you watch this? _

_I could ask you the same question, I'm not the one keeping secrets. Who is Yugi Motou to you?_

_I don't know._

_I won't pry for details, they make little difference. _She conceded at last. _The human body you're missing is just a vessel. Our permanent place in the universe still awaits us, and whether or not you admit it, you have a purpose here. If you want to know the blissful side of forever, you'll have to fulfill it first._

_What purpose could you have here, letting children be brainwashed by the vessel you cling to? You're a self-righteous hypocrite. _

_You have every right to be hostile, but it won't get you anywhere. You must've done some horrible things to repress your own identity, but even saying that I gain nothing. You can strip us down to who we are and who we're loyal to, and no matter which one of us emerges the noble one, we're stuck in the same place. _

_I'm not here to learn the same things you are._

_I never said you were. _She smiled sadly in an attempt to be amicable; _I just wanted to help you._

_It doesn't make up for this. _

She nodded solemnly in agreement,_ I know. _

_But you'll wait for him anyway, make excuses for this. You're a coward. _

_The man I married gave me the best of him. I am ashamed of what he's done, and loving who he is deep down makes me a villain, but I won't stop trying to reach him. You've given up on yourself and your companion. You're nothing more than a voice in your own realm of consciousness. It's easy to surrender when things are wrong, ugly, and hard. I could run from choices for fear I will make the wrong ones, but ultimately my husband deserves to love again. Outside of the relationship he's grieving, he deserves an identity, and so do you. The true cowards are the ones who are afraid to take chances, resigning themselves to the falsehood that one moment of euphoria is as good as it gets. Even when the goal is muddled and the players are wounded, the game is only over when someone stops trying. _

* * *

Even walking the grounds Pegasus felt an ominous sense of unrest, but there was little time to investigate at the moment, "Do you know how many times I've given you an extension?" He hissed into the phone.

"P-Please sir, given the nature of the request the answer has been elusive."

"Is that so?" He mocked, "Well, that changes everything."

"There's a questionable lead from the village, but the source is a child and the details haven't been thoroughly – "

"Let me make myself very clear. I will have my answer before Christmas." He paused for a long glug of wine, etiquette flew out the window twenty minutes ago, "No, no, don't nod your head; I want to hear you say it."

The sputtering employee was only further unnerved by his boss's perception of his body language, "You'll have your answer before Christmas." He replied meekly.

He smiled, relaxing, "Very good." Snow flurries had begun to drift from the sky in fine, powdery gusts, and as he hurried away from their relentless assault, made sure to add, "I'll be in touch."

When he approached them, the children were laughing. He almost fell into the help. Holed up in a tiny stone room, they were doubled over imitating someone choke on Christmas dinner. Surprise became a swelling thrill in his gut, and when fear and concern tempted the edges of his subconscious, he assigned them to Seto and forgot them. He could not dwell on the nagging part of himself that said their comfort zone had expanded too quickly. He attributed it to their need for release, and let it go. He had waited months for this moment, for a glimpse of genuine happiness among them.

They regarded him curiously, story halted, analyzing. He waved them on and pulled up a seat, and it did not matter that it was dark, and dank, and cold. The youngest child giggled in slurring, high pitched squeals, and he was so enamored by the sound it became inconceivable that he could ever stop it. The place had been devoid of laughter since Cecelia's passing; it was a precious commodity. He wanted to scoop them up, find the sensitive areas on the bottoms of their feet or the crooks of their arms, and tickle until he could not tell one voice from another, and they had become enveloped in safe, sacred harmony.

He let them do as they pleased; eventually moving the assembly to the dining room where they could watch the snow drifts create mounds of white outside the windows. They talked with loud abandon, completely swept up in their stories. There were no whispers of tension or cunning, no sideways glances to the guards. Power plays seemingly forgotten by the endearing group, the captor delighted that trust between them was not far off.

They had finally stopped being afraid of change, he decided, surely they realized, as he had just then, that they could never want anything more than this.

* * *

As it came time to return to their rooms, Tristan couldn't help but notice the glow of togetherness shake from Tea's features. The door was heavier when he shoved it open that night and clambered into bed. Beside him, he could sense Ryou was also nervous.

"Do you think this'll work?" He asked when he could no longer stand the silence.

The other shrugged his shoulders slightly, "I don't know." He said, his tone not a shred convinced. A long moment of understanding passed between them, and he knew their two minds had found the same train of thought. The ring was their best chance, if not for the spirit, for its pull to other millennium items like the puzzle. Maybe, Tristan thought, Bakura could use the ring just long enough to find the other spirit, who could be trusted to help them. It was only when the white haired boy would not hold his eyes, that he gathered courage to do the unthinkable.

"I'm not gonna pretend I know what you'll be going through...maybe we can hold out a little longer. But if there's no other way, if we're out of options..."

"You can't seriously ask that of me."

Tristan swallowed thickly and turned to face his companion. Bakura avoided his eyes in silence, trying not to tremble.

"I'm begging you."

The paler boy squeezed his eyes shut and tried to block out the world. He had plenty of demons. He made his fair share of mistakes. If some unforeseen force had been driving him to atone for them like this, he may have accepted and dealt with it. Being asked by friends he trusted to know him, the same friends who watched him struggle, and suffer, and break...he forced a sob back into his throat.

In his head, to calm himself, Amane was sitting on an iridescent bridge, either side leading to pristine white as far as the scenery stretched. Life here wasn't all that bad, was it? They weren't being beaten or tortured; they were still allowed to talk to one another, conditionally. If he really worked it out, he knew what the right answer was. If he stopped letting the false nicety of Pegasus Crawford sway him, and if he ignored the way the man had made him feel loved, and secure, and wanted, even for just that one moment in his arms, when he was worth saving...he knew what the answer was. He also knew what it meant. The only tie to a man who could contend with the spirit would be irreversibly severed. His friends would have their freedom, and he would go back to being trapped in a bigger, prettier world with the same ugly secret. He would have the gang to run to, of course, but after tonight even that had changed. After tonight, things would never be the same.

The sob sat in his chest, well suppressed and suffocating. He battled with the weight, calling it tears and whimpers, because he could not accept that it was anxiety, and shame, and guilt. Not at hesitating to save his friends, but at betraying the only man who did not ask him to bear pain for the greater good. He would do what was right (he hoped) because his friends were his first, longest supporters. But faced with an impossible choice, he could not ignore every ounce of his heart leaping for the arms of the man who absolved him of worry and affliction, taking all of the anguish into his own body. Sacrificing in silence. Protecting.

In the end he didn't know who was right and who was wrong. He only knew that if he did not agree, everyone around him would suffer the same terrible captivity he had all these years. And yet, in the back of his mind, a little whisper prodded that he deserved more than misery. That he was worth something, too. He did not know truth, he only knew reality. Hurting his friends out of selfishness was on his soul, and so, he would surrender to spending the rest of his life getting strong enough to fight back. Maybe that way, when he was faced with whatever came at the end of life, some part of the universe would know that the bloodlust was not his, that he was merely swept up in a spirit's quest for power, and spent his entire life trying to find a way out.

"Okay." He relented, meeting his friend's eyes, "We'll do what we have to."

Tristan wanted to thank him, but seeing his friend sitting helplessly beside him made the request impossibly real, and he knew it would never be enough. "We'll get through this." He promised, because he at least wanted Bakura to know he would never fight alone.

The boy's eyes repeated what he had stammered earlier: _you can't seriously ask that of me._

And for a moment, Tristan almost wished he hadn't.

* * *

_Doubt will creep through the windows as you sleep,  
Setting in like a cold, cold front.  
Your hands go numb and your stomach doubles up.  
And you think, was I happy once?_

"They Can't If You Don't Let Them" - A Fine Frenzy

* * *

Author's Note: In case anyone is interested, the song mentioned in this chapter is the one that inspired me to write "The Stockholm Game," and provides a lot of depth to the story. That aside, I realize this chapter is choppy, and I have to be honest and admit I did intend it to turn out that way. The characters are re-adapting to their sense of self-discovery, coming of age is never an entirely smooth and poetic experience. Given the circumstances, I wanted the style of "Identity" to reflect the struggles of the characters, because they have always been about more than just captivity. As always, thank you for reading.


	10. Playing To Win

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Yugioh, nor do I claim rights to any of the affiliated characters.

**Warnings/Notes: **This chapter contains somewhat graphic description of bodily injury, and implied corporal punishment.I would like to once again thank all of the wonderful people supporting the progress of this story; you guys have been an inspiration to me in so many ways. I am striving to reply to all reviews I receive from here on out, I really do appreciate them. All responses to anonymous reviews will be written in this section before the story starts. Enjoy chapter ten.

Yoko Sakura: Thank you for your review. I agree with you, Tea's fighting spirit has been worn down in isolation. She has been largely without her friends through the trauma that is captivity, and she is weaker in their absence.

Just me: Thank you for your review, I hope you enjoy the new chapter.

* * *

_**Chapter Ten: Playing To Win**_

* * *

Flames rose from the earth and exploded across the halls, crawling along floorboards and up molding. He was consumed by a stifling heat, choking on the thickness of the air as his comforter billowed with smoke and ash. He tried to imitate the made-for-TV agility he had been so mesmerized by since childhood, but found he could barely shrug the blankets off and clamber to his feet. Blackness was quickly enveloping what faint line of vision remained, and to the chorus of screaming through the doorway, he pushed out into the presence of open flame.

The temperature was rising in front of and behind him, fire creating a barrier around every corridor but one to the left. He held his breath, drawing a pajama clad arm to his face to avoid coughing and sputtering. As it stood, he could barely hear above the roar of destruction at his back.

He tried not to breathe. Common sense said the children would be in the right wing of the castle and had no way of leaving, but if the guards had panicked they could be anywhere by now. A shrill noise filled his ears and heart, thrusting weary legs forward without direction. As fast as they could carry him toward her, he went.

"Somebody help me! Please!" She was sobbing, and in his head he could smell the burning flesh so clearly he was gagging on it. It swirled around his thoughts and infiltrated his throat; he retched violently, stumbling forward to the echo of her voice. "Don't leave me here, please god!"

"I'm coming!" He tried to shout, but his throat was too dry to form words and his limbs felt useless beneath him. He dragged himself to the end of the hallway where a door on his right was radiating heat. The flames had swallowed it. If he entered he would be swallowed too, flesh, sinew, and bone surrendered to the source less combustion. But the screams were thumping in his ears, swarming around his headspace as the smell pushed bile into his throat and teased his mortal weakness. The world caved in and the blackness came and a whisper said,

"Your body will stink, too."

He shook the door open and stood heaving in the entryway. Anxiety mounted in his gut as he gathered courage to charge the heat. His choice was not a shred heroic, but he couldn't face losing her, not again. "Max." She moaned, and for a moment he thought it was the sound of her voice that made the uncomfortable warmth disappear. _Cecelia. _

His eyes rose from the ground to the untouched room. Heart in his throat, he reached each arm out to grasp the doorway so as not fall through it. The hardwood floor was polished and shining, the chill of night sweeping in on a breeze through an open window, curtains flowing forward, stretching out their mocking limbs for his own.

She was alive, just as he remembered her, blonde hair falling into her face as the rough handed figure in the center of the room jerked a rope around her neck. Her long, nimble fingers gripped at the fibers around her throat, clawing and tugging futilely. "Stop!" He thundered, feeling suddenly powerful. "What the hell are you – "

The figure turned, "I knew you'd choose her." It spat, face and hands charred, skin blackened around exposed flesh and bone. All traces of lips were gone leaving its teeth exposed in the sick flash of a smile, "Why daddy?" It said.

"No…no, no, no, honey…" Tears sprung to his eye, he reached both arms out to accept the child, to hug him and sob over his mutilated body.

"Why wasn't I good enough Daddy? I trusted you!" The being pulled the rope around her throat until she could not scream anymore. Her tongue protruded from her mouth and she gagged on the forced contractions of her chest, trying to draw breath. "You didn't come for me!" It shouted, voice betraying the sadness of eyes that could no longer produce tears. "I waited for you."

"I'm right here. Daddy's right here." He tried to reason, but the other would not be dissuaded.

"I hate you." As his fingers clasped around his son's, the woman's body fell to the floor, blue and lifeless.

"Cecelia!" The boy he had latched onto was screaming at him, some mangled cry of pain and resentment he could no longer hear. Everything was numb. And she was gone, again.

-x-

He woke panting and feverish. Fully alone, he crossed the room for the picture tucked into his mirror and broke down to her smiling face. In the morning he would probe their thoughts for love and affection to pacify the part of himself that could never choose between his wife and children. For now, he set the picture on her side of the bed and confessed that he didn't think he could do this, anymore.

* * *

A feeling of unrest had settled in the room around him. Back to his companion in the darkness of night, Bakura listened hard for the faint whisper of a woman that sometimes permeated the walls. When it did not materialize, he began to worry about the true cause of his anxiety, and rolled over onto his back. Tristan let out a slow breath to signal he too was awake, and did the same. Gazes locked on the ceiling, they began to speak.

"Bakura?"

"Mm?"

"I've been thinking." He stopped, many words he could not say filling the space between them, "Do you remember when Pegasus first locked us up and planned to starve us out?" The other's eyes narrowed to his.

"Of course I do. Yugi and I listened to him give the orders and practically swallowed our tongues trying not to worry you with it."

Tristan flinched; hand feeling blindly for his friend's. He took it, squeezing gently, "I'm so sorry." A lump was forming in his throat at the thought of what he had asked the boy to do earlier that night, "You know I meant it when I said we'd exhaust all our options first." He turned on his side to face Bakura, who hesitantly laced his fingers between Tristan's, otherwise unmoving. They had never slept facing one another long enough to awaken and notice, but in the compact space of the bed, their bodies almost touched.

"Listen, I know what you're saying and I appreciate it, but if it comes down to –"

"No." He interrupted firmly, "It won't. I know it won't. Pegasus cares about us now, in whatever sick way he intended to all along. He wouldn't let us die to keep us here." He continued hurriedly.

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying we use his own strategy against him, go on a hunger strike until he lets us the fuck out of here."

The other considered this for a long moment, "That's crazy." He replied with a shake of his head, "He'd just force us to eat."

"Maybe he would initially, but not every day for the rest of our lives. If we kept it up, it wouldn't be worth it anymore. We would win this."

"What about the others? Joey's sister and Yugi's grandpa, wouldn't he use them against us?"

"He'll do that no matter what." Tristan reminded him, a bit of frustration in his tone, "I know this will be hard too, but if we let the ring do the work it would definitely mean harm for you. At least this way, we control the outcome. We can fight together."

"How will we tell the others?" He answered shakily, overwhelmed at his friend's show of courage and regard for him.

"We won't, it would be too risky. They'll catch on eventually."

Bakura turned on his side to face Tristan and he tried to ignore the warmth filling his stomach as the brunet's breath caressed his skin, "Starting tomorrow then?"

Tristan nodded, stretching an arm around his friend and letting him inch nearer until they entangled one another in an embrace.

What he felt was not lust, but Ryou began to reconsider the notion that he was only worth saving to Pegasus Crawford. Somewhere inside, Tristan's compassion was filling him up and it did not matter if the boy had only said those things to free up his guilt. The warmth was probably nothing, and things between he and Tristan would probably not change at the end of this, but it made betraying Pegasus easier, to hope with a tiny piece of himself that they could.

* * *

In the morning he stood at the head of the table and beckoned them, one by one, to his side. They came and went like cadets, veiling uneasiness with blank expressions, emotion diluted by instinct that knew there were no choices in these matters anymore. He hugged each of them individually to reinforce the relief of seeing their usual, unmarred faces. Though awkwardness was to be expected, their mechanic bodies against his own made him flinch.

The reason he no long appeased his desire for company with cartoons was simple. He did not want imitations in dogs, or baby dolls, or holograms. He wanted the real breathing, screaming, heart melting thing. Perhaps it was because he had always come from money, and was accustomed to the things it could set at his fingertips, or perhaps it was because he could not love things more than he loved himself.

Time would peel back the flesh from his bones, and wipe his name from the empire of duel monsters. Eventually someone would replace him as head of the company, and years would whittle away the importance of the game's origin. His legacy, like all those strictly material, would vanish. He would be nothing more than the simple man who spent his days with a dying woman, trying to cure cancer with naïve thoughts of love and sympathy.

He forced his attention to the children clearing their plates, smiling warmly. Apathy was weighing on them, and not far beyond it hatred was mellowing into acceptance. Soon they would love him as he had imagined. He and Cecelia would finally have their family, and he could make his long overdue mark on the world. They would be his and he would be theirs. Secrecy would be sacred again.

"I think we should play a game." He announced distractedly, taking a sip of hot cocoa and letting the sweetness linger on his lips. The children called out approvingly, and he took in the sight of them with a grin, "Ah, ah, ah," He chided in strangely rehearsed fashion, "No playing until everyone eats breakfast."

The others trained their eyes to the two boys with empty, untouched plates. In turn, they met the many gazes knowingly, and to everyone's surprise, even his own, Bakura spoke, "I'm not feeling well." He lied. Instantly he wondered if it was a mistake. Weren't these things supposed to prove a point? Should he be dismissing what they had planned? Tristan made no sign of discouragement, and instead waited for Pegasus to break the silence.

"What's the matter?"

"Nauseous." The two boys replied in unison, each fighting not to look down as fear leapt into their chests.

His immediate reaction was to probe their minds, but he resisted. Though the part of him that made the children toe the line was very much in control, the fragility of last night carried over into the morning, and he felt compelled to lead with compassion. Even as the child of his dreams cried _why wasn't I good enough, _he vowed that something was going to change. Today. He would give mercy one more chance because he loved them, and because they were making progress even if it was slow. But in the end this was his battle, and regardless of casualties, he intended to be its victor.

"What a shame." He declared at last, lacing his fingers together, "I remember being sick as a child." The darkness returned to his features then, and the table began to wonder if they had pushed too far, "My mother used to let me sleep in her bed until I felt better, after a few hours I was good as new." He rose ominously from his seat, lips still curved, beckoning the two to rise.

Though they wanted to, they couldn't argue. Silently they did as he wanted: stood and disappeared with him back the halls. In the hours before dinner, their friends sat rooted to the dining table, making awkward conversation well within earshot of the many guards.

"Do you think they'll be okay?" Mokuba finally asked, directing his curiosity to Yugi, who had survived a night with the man.

Yugi nodded to disguise his worry, "They know to be careful by now. As long as they don't push too hard, they'll be fine."

Mokuba was silent for a long moment before the unanimous thought came spilling out among them, "He's got us cornered, you know."

"Mokuba," Seto warned gruffly.

"It's the truth." The younger protested, "We don't have to kiss his feet for this to be over. It's just like your crush card, Pegasus got us right where he wanted us, and now it doesn't matter what little bit we know about him, we don't have the cards to fight back."

"You're wrong." Kaiba countered sternly, turning to face the boy and opening the locket from around his neck, "I came to this island to fight for you." He continued, keeping his tone controlled and even, "No matter what Pegasus takes, I still have you. And I will never stop fighting for that."

Mokuba leapt from his seat and threw his arms gracelessly around his brother, "Seto." He mewed into the fabric of the boy's trench coat, hugging him tight.

"It's okay." He stroked the younger's hair, and as Mokuba stepped back from him to wipe an arm across his tears added, "Leave the worrying to me."

Joey watched the two brothers while battling his own tears. Suddenly he hated Seto more than he had ever hated anyone. Serenity was a world away, by now, if Pegasus had really ordered the surgery, she would know if it had been a success or failure. He pinched the bridge of his nose as his eyes reddened with moisture; he had not been there to coax away her anxiety as the bandages came off. He had not been able to tell her that no matter what the outcome, success or failure, they would face the world just as they always had. Because he had her, and she had him, and that was all they ever needed.

"Joey…"

"Just leave me alone." He replied, slapping Yugi's concerned hand away and massaging his temples to distract himself.

"What's wrong?" Mokuba pressed, holding onto Seto's shirt sleeve and allowing his curious eye's to meet the elder's.

"Nothing buddy." Joey lied, fighting harder to collect himself. "I'm just missing someone, that's all."

"You're being an idiot."

Anger surged and he nearly reached across the table to choke the CEO, "Where the fuck do you get off –"

"She's with your mother." Kaiba continued, unfazed.

"My mother is in idiot."

"Would she be better off here?" He countered, Joey froze, deflated.

"No." He admitted, voice still trembling with anger, "But none of us can know if she's really with my mother, he could be holding her hostage somewhere."

"Oh shut up."

"Seto!" Mokuba scolded, outraged, "He's just worried for his sister like you worry for me."

"And he's endangering all of us with his stupidity." The elder replied, eyes locked on the blonde's, "A reputable newspaper reported that Pegasus's staff was preforming surgery. The same newspaper reported a storm left us safe but stranded here. No one in the outside world knows what's going on, but the disappearance of a kid would sure as hell insight suspicion. There's a difference between good and bad attention. Usually, as a business, you can work with both. Right now Pegasus doesn't want either. He did the surgery, it was a roaring success, and she's safe in bed while your mother sobs that she can never make this up to him."

"How do you know?" He spat.

"Because we haven't heard otherwise –"

"How could we, we're trapped on a fucking island with no access to know otherwise."

Kaiba chuckled, shoving roughly against the table to vent his frustration, "If something went wrong the paparazzi would be swarming this island like the dogs they are. He's not exactly hiding out for Christ's sake. Newspapers know what sells and they're not going to settle for some scripted apology. They'd have tracked Pegasus down and made him answer for a little girl losing her eyesight, or for the mysterious disappearance of a child from his hospital."

"She's fine?" Joey forced, dry and rasping.

"She's fine." Kaiba repeated, "And she believes the newspaper that says you're safe in a castle built to combat hurricane season."

"Kaiba's right." Yugi put in hesitantly, "Serenity's holding out for you to come home. She's with you just like you're with her, in spirit, when you physically can't be next to her. She's learned how to be strong from you, Joey. She's counting on you to keep it together so we can go home."

The blonde nodded, swallowing thickly, "You're right." He managed to choke, sitting up straighter in his seat.

Before he could continue, Yugi held up a hand, "I understand, you don't have to apologize.

He did anyway. Turning to Kaiba, he uttered two words he thought he would never have to say to the man, "Thank you."

Kaiba nodded wordlessly and ushered Mokuba into his seat. Behind them, a clock on the wall chimed five times and the servants craned their necks for the approaching figure of their master. Five minutes passed, and he did not appear. Ten minutes, fifteen. The remaining five captives sat, as they had all day, and slowly observed the faces of the guards contort with curiosity and concern. The smell of food was wafting through the room, and with no sign of Tristan and Bakura, there was no delight in seeing the cruel men squirm with confusion. As per usual, all they could do was wait, and worry.

* * *

"Poor babies." He cooed, motioning for each boy to sit up, "Still not feeling well?" They shook their heads in response, unable to meet his eyes. For hours he had kept them in complete silence, suffocating under mounds of well-tucked blankets. He had done little to conceal outrage simmering beneath the surface of nicety, occupying his time in an arm chair at the corner of the room, positioned diagonally to face the bed.

"We want – "

"Hush." He asserted firmly, pressing a finger across Tristan's lips. "It's rude to interrupt Daddy." Any flicker of normalcy that existed in the man the previous day had been replaced by his typical insanity. "I find it…odd that you both presented with the same, single symptom at the same exact moment. No fever, no chills, no headache or vomiting." He took to pacing the room, malice washing over them in thick, potent waves. "Have you two been sharing food or drink?"

"Yes." Tristan quickly replied, biting his lip at the eagerness of his response. He didn't want to dismiss his true motives, but he also couldn't risk them being discovered before they had spread to the others.

Pegasus's millennium eye glinted briefly in the fading light of sunset, "Now Tristan." He purred, a warning in his voice, "It's not _polite _to lie. I raised you better than that."

"You didn't raise me at all." The brunet challenged before he could stop himself, earning a swift cuff from Pegasus.

"I'm not here to play games darling. I can see your every conniving, disobedient thought, and I know about the ring." He informed them nonchalantly, eyes drifting from Bakura to Tristan as he gripped the brunet's cheeks roughly, "I have made very special arrangements for it, I'm afraid. You've no hope of escaping me in one piece, and if resistance is your game, I guarantee I will outlast you." He had stalked so close that his cold spit was spraying the boyish face.

Two raps at the door pulled him away from the child, leaving faint red marks where his fingers had buried themselves in his cheeks, "Come in." He cheerfully instructed, turning on his heel to face the visitor.

"I've come to examine the children." The doctor was distinctly middle aged, receding hairline modeling tiny wisps of gray among black. He looked and sounded tired, droning on about the basic procedure of investigating common ills.

"I'll just leave them to you." Pegasus offered in a gracious turn of character that made them sick. "Poke your head out when you've finished."

The doctor worked his jaw helplessly for a moment before inclining his head, "Of course sir."

Pegasus returned the nod with a polite smile, and strode briskly out of the room. The elder could sense his anger, but dared not question it. Advancing on the two boys and lowering his voice several notches, he began, "What sort of discomfort are you experiencing?"

The boys stared quietly back at him for a moment before exchanging a look of uneasiness, "Nausea. We've been held against our will for months, unable to see or talk to our families. What else would you expect?"

When the doctor ignored Tristan and reached for a pen light to check his eyes and nose, he continued on, "Look, it's obvious the guy has some kind of personality disorder but you're innocent in all this. Nothing would come back on you if you just –"

"Listen kid." He interjected, exhaustion more apparent in the creases of his face, "I'm here to do a job. I'm not paid enough to be a hero."

"Just enough to be an accomplice to kidnapping." Tristan retorted smugly.

"Let me put it to you another way." The doctor replied, tugging at the collar of his coat, "If you sit here and shut up for ten minutes I'll tell him you have the flu, keep fucking with me and I'll tell him you're fine and let him deal with you."

"Don't you have kids?" Ryou pressed, knowing that if they could just get one person of their side they could escape this.

The older man nodded and turned to look at them in the mirror, "Crawford's bonus pays for college."

"We'll get out of here eventually, you know."

The elder cleared his throat and glanced habitually at his watch, "Good luck."

* * *

"I'm sick of your incompetence." He hissed into phone with a grunt of frustration, "Get a senior employee on the phone." The young woman hesitated for a moment, clearly flustered, but passed the device to the only seasoned employee present. Addison Langley was a 68 year old father and grandfather, who only agreed to the voyage to get as far away from the monstrosity of duelist kingdom as possible.

"Hello."

"I have very specific instructions for you, so listen carefully." The menacing edge of his boss's voice snaked its way around him, and he could do little more than pause in stunned silence, hoping he would continue. "The millennium ring is currently in the care of Ushio Sato, I've arranged for him to meet you at the capital to hand it off. Once you have it, I want you to find a person or a family willing to make a sacrifice to the spirit inside, in return for 500,000 Egyptian pounds."

"What do you mean a sacrifice?"

Pegasus sighed irritably, "Just what it sounds like, you fool, an offering! The spirit requires a living vessel with no soul to contend with. Once the apparition takes the body, you will bring the item back to me, immediately."

"But sir, we can't just ask someone to give up their life for money! It's absurd, it's, it's immoral. I won't do it."

"Let's match business with business, hm? I'm paying you to do a job, and you haven't done it. I am going to give you instructions to a hotel in Cairo where you will meet Sato and receive the ring. Either you do as I've asked, and find one of many spiritually devoted villagers to give up their body to a higher being, with the added bonus of a large sum of money...or I tell Ushio to let the spirit have you. Either way, I will have my ring, and my answer, before Christmas."

The man on the other line was completely silent. His companion shook him gently, and Pegasus could hear her asking if he was alright from nearby. "Have we reached an understanding?" He growled out lowly.

Breath ripped from his chest, the man nodded twice before realizing his boss couldn't see him do so, "Yes." He croaked, defeated.

Pegasus chuckled darkly into the phone, "Very good." He replied, "Oh and Addison."

"…Yes, sir?"

"Do keep me posted." He chirped, snapping the phone shut and making his way to the bedroom.

The doctor met him at the door, desperate to get away from the teary teenagers as the blonde remarked, "Do you think he knows?" and the brunet replied with the obvious lie that it didn't matter, it wasn't going to stop them.

Pegasus froze at the man's grave expression, "Is something wrong?" He inquired, rushing to the doorway and peering in at the obviously distressed children.

"The flu," he replied flatly, "They should be fine in a day or so." He paused for a long moment before cursing the sight of his daughter's face, persistently invading his thoughts to push him into action, "Y'know they're just kids – "

"_Thank you, _doctor." Pegasus countered, glowering as he shoved passed the man and moved to close the door. Outranked and unwilling to further risk his paycheck, the man turned back the way he came, and was gone.

All kindness he previously considered extending had been eradicated, consumed by his anger at their continued plotting. He had seen their plan for the ring, but had not probed further to reveal their current strategy. In his opinion, there had been no need. They were waiting for the ring to find its way back to them, and in the meantime, sought to be as defiant as possible. He was a fool to be soft with them.

He crossed the room and lurched Tristan forward to the edge of the bed. The last of the boy's tears slipped down his face as he struggled to face the man. Perhaps they had been wrong to think he cared. Perhaps his real motive was still buried somewhere, impossible to discover or decode.

"I'm sorry I doubted you, little one." He pressed a pensive kiss to each of the boy's cheeks, flushed and warm from crying. "But you know better than to test me." Even as anger reared its head, Pegasus could feel it dissipate as the helpless body against his own became like an infant, something he could cradle, love sternly, and forgive. His heart fluttered for a moment. They were maddening, but even this disgusted with them, they were his.

He pulled away and guided the child's gaze to his own, "Is there something you want to say to Daddy?" He coaxed. Tristan blinked at him, "What do we say," he pressed, in a slow, chiding voice that made the younger flush deeper with embarrassment, "when we've been misbehaving?"

"I'm sorry." He murmured.

Pegasus made a small noise of approval before standing the boy up and capturing him in an embrace, "Ryou." He prompted.

The child felt guilty and obstinate in the same moment, "I'm sorry too." He offered despite himself, to which Pegasus nodded in satisfaction.

"Glad to hear it." He told them both, eyes never leaving Tristan's, which trailed to the carpet at their feet, "Ah, ah, look at me." He ordered, and hesitantly, the child obeyed, "I've given you plenty of chances to listen, and to do this the easy way." He lectured, "You chose to ignore all of that and to mouth off, and we need to correct that." He began to remove his belt, doubling it in his hands.

"Daddy…"

"Lean over." He nodded toward the bed, broad, toned body a stone barricade between the child and his only exit. "You too." He addressed Bakura this time, in an unmoving stance that reiterated he had all the time in the world.

Of course he adored the children; he would not have gone through the trouble of this charade if anything else were the case. "I love you." He continued as they relented, a strange determination in their features, "But I'm very disappointed in you."

It was a lie of course. Despite their willfulness, he was only disappointed to realize his suspicions were correct. Having the family he wanted dictated a period of brutality.

His babies would have to endure much more than just a whipping.

* * *

Author's notes: Thank you again for reading, reviewing, and sticking with me so far. Chapter eleven will be a lot better than this, but the current chunk of story you've suffered through was essential.


	11. Last Resort

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Yugioh, nor do I claim rights to any of the affiliated characters. Any brands recognizable in this chapter are the full legal property of their respective owners.

**Warnings/Notes: **Tons of mind games, pathological fluff, and sappiness. A lot is happening from the end of last chapter into this one, please read the concluding author's notes at the bottom of the screen once you've finished with the actual content. If you still have questions, please don't hesitate to ask in a review or a private message; I will get back to you ASAP.

Just me: Thank you again for your review, what you've touched on will be explained in this chapter and the chapters following. I hope you enjoy the turnout.

Yoko Sakura: As I mentioned above, please read the concluding notes once you've finished this chapter, the ending of "Playing To Win" will make more sense afterwards. Thank you so much for the review and commentary.

x-Sheeqsee112-x: Hello my dear, welcome to "The Stockholm Game." I appreciate your thorough feedback and support. Equal character development is hard to divide among so many people, but is definitely essential to the progression of the story. All of your curiosity will be appeased soon, thank you so much for the review.

* * *

_**Chapter Eleven: Last Resort**_

* * *

A full day after the start of their hunger strike, Tristan and Ryou carried on with curiosity and determination. Their encounter with Pegasus left them reeling, more questions arising than had been answered, and they began to wonder if the man would forever be an enigma. He brought them to the table personally throughout the day, shame stealing into their gut as he baby talked them about their "illness." It was apparent from the beginning. He knew.

Initially as time wore on he was passive aggressive, exactly as they had expected. At breakfast they were met with full plates of cut, browned meats and eggs. Their tantalizing scents wafting about the room long after most of the others had finished. The man at the head of the table cast them stern looks and arguments, both of which they ignored. When he ordered they be kept at the table until they ate, they sat until midnight while the others were drawn away to play monopoly, charades, or some other preposterous game that would not pacify the woes of imprisonment. Disheartened by the strict silence they were forced to adhere to, they felt a pang of guilt at Tea's plight. Yet, for all of their struggles, another would join them from dinner time 'til midnight. It wasn't just Pegasus who had caught on, Kaiba had noticed too.

When resistance stretched in length and number, Pegasus made a show of tormenting them. Eventually they were not even allowed reprieve from the food on their plates to use the bathroom. They woke in the morning, knew enough movement to get dressed and shuffle to the dining room, and were left to nothingness for hours. Though maddening in its own right, they had expected more...severity.

On the sixth day they were also six people strong. Tea had watched their hands begin to tremble, and their muscles weaken, and knew she could not keep abandoning them like this. To the heightening uneasiness of all those involved, their abductor seemed oddly resigned to their efforts. He no longer yelled, made threats, or abused furniture, he merely enforced routine. They got up. They sat. They starved.

Everyone knew his strategy by now. Pegasus Crawford never stopped playing games. In the idle hours of persistence since Tea's company began, worry swelled in their stomachs. The ability to tell reality from illusion became hopelessly impaired. Tristan and Ryou, who had been without food the longest, and who were showing obvious signs of bodily distress, were not force fed. He provided them as much water as they wanted; even though he had to know it stimulated the feeling of being full. A thought broke out in a whisper among the two pioneers and Kaiba, what if Pegasus had planned this all along? If they had misjudged his supposed affection for them, it was likely they'd fallen into a trap of being their own undoing, allowing the perpetrator to wash his hands of the crime. It left questions of his motive, but clarity in that regard was beginning to seem more like a pipe dream than a possibility.

Every person at or away from the table was praying for a lingering sign of interest, whether it be a plea, a threat, even a physical blow. Something to indicate he wasn't going to leave them to rot. Each needed this for different reasons. Yugi so there was hope of saving his grandfather, Tea so there was hope of reconciling with Pegasus, and Kaiba so he could declare himself the winner in a losing game, so there was hope of _any_ victory for their side. If seeing them like this was torture for Pegasus, and he avoided being near them for fear of showing it, all his time away from Mokuba had been worth it. If the man did not show signs of caring soon, however, he would know death had been Crawford's plan all along, and he would have to eat for Mokuba's sake. He dreaded the thought, but if Pegasus intended to make this a suicide game, they were at his mercy in life or death.

Yugi and his friends questioned everything they knew, because surely they were good people who did not deserve this treatment. Kaiba questioned too. All his life, he had made knowing the enemy a priority, embraced common sense, business sense, book smarts, and yet, all of that knowledge would be the end of them. As the sixth day approached its close there was no sign of Pegasus, and he felt a strange flood of guilt. He had been the one to jump to conclusions about Pegasus wanting to keep them alive. He had been the one to suggest they'd be dead by now, if that was the true intention. In the final moments before midnight he feared, with everything inside of him, that he had been wrong. While those around him had lost any fragment of faith they'd been raised with, he bowed his head in grudged silence, and offered a prayer.

* * *

The room was quiet. Mokuba rubbed his hands together to fight off the chill of night. Normally he would lay his head on his brother's chest, but Seto's breathing was gradually becoming labored without the added weight. He snuggled close enough to drape an arm around his tall, thinning frame, and relented.

"I'm going to stop eating tomorrow." He said, because there was no way to make the announcement poetic.

The brunet blinked his eyes open, stiffening, "No." He replied sternly, in the tone that told his employees it was an order.

"You can't do this on your own, I won't let you." The younger protested, raising his voice slightly.

"Hush." The elder prompted, pressing a hand to the side of the child's head and coaxing it onto the pillow again, "It won't be long before Pegasus caves."

Mokuba wanted to scream that even if he caved tomorrow, it would be too late. His brother's reaction time had slowed considerably. _All_ of his movements had slowed considerably. Mokuba could shower and redress before Seto had fully stripped himself. All the while, the elder insisted it was nothing. He would be just fine, he said. He had gone longer than this without eating, for business, and hardly even noticed.

"You're wasting away." He pleaded as Seto turned to face him.

"I'm just fine." He assured, smoothing locks of raven hair and smiling the best he could manage, the gesture couldn't help but be genuine; at least Mokuba was safe in his arms. Every day he worried Pegasus would make bait of the boy, the only reason he could surmise the man hadn't is because he'd become bored with that tactic. He scoffed despite himself.

"You're lying. Let me take a turn Seto, you're so pale and you –"

"It doesn't work that way." The elder cut in, "We can't eat in shifts and expect to accomplish anything. Pegasus will act when he realizes I'm not giving up, but I have to put the time in first. I won't let you martyr yourself, for someone as young as you there are too many risks." He informed the younger, "I'm pale because I haven't been touched by the sun in months. Even your complexion has lightened; I'm surprised I don't glow in the dark."

There it was. The laugh he missed so dearly from home. Mokuba had a little squeak in his voice when he laughed, "Promise me you'll stop if it gets too bad?"

Seto nodded and pulled him close, "I promise."

Somewhere inside, for the first time in their lives, Mokuba knew he had lied.

* * *

The next morning he woke them before the sun. Hardened by practice, they forced themselves out of bed, into clothes, and off to greet the day. It was hardly a day for them, just a room and a plate, but it had at least become a way to keep track of time. As they settled into their usual seats, they were surprised to see Pegasus waiting patiently at the table.

A flicker of hope rose among them. He hadn't bothered to endure regular meals in their company for a few days; maybe he was going to end this.

He cleared his throat, an intrusive emphasis of the silence that had been holding the room. "I know they're not in season," he began a bit tiredly, "but I had strawberries brought in for you." His eyes found Yugi's and captured them, "I know you used to pick them every summer. They're your favorite."

The child blinked at him, anxiety clawing its way up from his stomach and into his throat, "I…used to go with my Grandpa, his friend had a farm." His throat constricted painfully and he swallowed back the tears, eyes never leaving the captor's. This was what they'd been waiting for. He was going to surrender; he was…smiling, fondly.

"It's still so moving that you remember him from when you were a baby. That little orchard in France you used to stomp around." He chuckled softly, "You always were the clumsy one."

The world broke. His heart beat loud in his ears, drowning out the building ache in his muscles. Even as he desperately tried to stop them, tears spilled out in hot, mocking trails across his face, "Please…" He begged, and he knew Kaiba's eyes were aiming daggers at his back, but he couldn't stop, he couldn't. "I love my family. I know you love…loved your wife, but believe me she wouldn't-"

"No, no, no." The elder's voice lowered until it was almost unrecognizable, "Don't you dare finish that sentence." His face was strangely listless, "I've been very patient with you, Yugi-boy, but I can't abide lying in this house."

"I only wanted to…I…"

"What is it dear?"

He could deal with another week of deprivation, but he wasn't sure he could say the same about Tristan or Bakura, the latter was underweight to begin with, and stumbled numerous times on their trip down the hall. "I love you."

Kaiba's body eased into the chair, his shoulders hunching forward slightly as he came down off the surge of adrenaline and anger. He couldn't fault Yugi for this, even if it made him sick. The CEO was a proud, arrogant child who had spent the night hating himself too; he knew the weight of self-loathing every time he looked into Mokuba's worried face. Deep down he was struggling to come to terms with the fact that Pegasus was making he and Wheeler the same. Mokuba was hurting, and that sister he babbled on about was hurting too, and they couldn't do anything to quell that pain, anymore. He and Mokuba were hiding from one another in the same room, masking feelings with small talk. It was slow, but he could feel his train of thought wandering, and he often paused to reflect on how long he'd allowed himself to stray from planning. Even this early, the slip into disorientation taunted him. For Mokuba's sake, he couldn't allow that.

He swallowed thickly, if Yugi hadn't been the one to break, he might've actually…

"I love you too." Pegasus replied, warmth fluttering into his voice, "You know this has all been out of love, don't you?"

Yugi moved a hand to his face, trying to feel the fingers dragging downward from his temple. He began to shake violently, and Pegasus lurched forward in his seat, face no longer vacant enough to hide his concern. He said, "I know," but all he could think about was Solomon's soul card in the man's hand as he purred, _you know you deserve this, don't you?_

"Yugi-boy, Yugi!" The elder rose from his seat and grasped the boys shoulders, shaking him firmly back to reality, "Look at me."

"I'm sorry."

Olive skin pressed into porcelain and he tilted the boy's head to match his eye level. "Enough of this trying to be strong," he twirled a lock of Yugi's hair around the finger of his free hand, "let Daddy take care of that."

"Okay."

"Eat for Daddy, sweetheart."

"I can't."

Pegasus clicked his tongue disapprovingly, "Now, now, you said that before didn't you?" Yugi scrunched his face to avoid sobbing, "Do you remember what I told you then?"

"I love you." He repeated, spraying the man with spit as the sob forced itself through his closed lips, "But I still want to go home. I still want my home." Yugi shuddered on impulse, he knew what was coming and he regretted the words already. The entire conversation was a mistake. A ploy.

Pegasus wiped his face with the side of his fist and rose from the table, releasing his hold on the boy. His eye darkened and his features hardened, and Yugi remembered Tea's unconscious body. _I take it back. _He was screaming. _I take it all back. _

"I'm your father." He droned sternly, "And as your father, the games end today."

The small form flinched away, expecting to be struck. Instead, the red suited man ordered them back to their rooms, "Wait –"

"It's too late for that." He interrupted sharply, then, turning to Yukio, he continued. "Take Mokuba too, when I want them, you'll know."

The space was alive with rustling fabric and the struggle of strong, able bodies against fragile, scrambling ones. Yugi was glued to his chair. He knew he should move. It was in his best interest to obey, but his head couldn't control his legs anymore. The breath drew out of him in one choking hack, and he slumped forward, almost directly into Pegasus's arms.

The CEO caught him gracelessly, lifting him up and passing him off to Makoto, "You'll always be my baby." He soothed as the others struggled back the hall. They were filing out, save for Tea, who was frozen in place too, listening to Pegasus's voice break as he spoke the words.

As his last son was carried away, he turned to the daughter and jerked her chair back, "Daddy please…"

"Stand up."

Her stomach knotted as she did so, and in an instant he pulled her close to his side. Both of his strong hands rested on her arms, and she looked down to avoid his eyes. All these weeks he had taken care of her, allowed her to take company with him even though he had obviously intended her to be isolated. He was merciful. To him, he had said, she was the perfect daughter.

"Look at me Tea." Her eyes stung with tears, and she thought to protest, but her lips did nothing more than tremble against one another as she lifted her gaze to him. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, eye widening slightly in anger before softening in reflection, "Why?" In her own mind, she was screaming that she had a home, and friends who needed their real loved ones, their real school, family, and neighborhood. She closed her eyes for a moment, sympathy for the man in front of her pushed down by the memories she and her friends had made for so many years. She could not be loyal to both sides, but if she could delay choosing just a few more days, a few more moments even, then maybe he would…

"I asked you a question." In those few words, he had done anything but return her compassion.

As he stood in front of her making demands, he subconsciously became two men in her mind, the one who had hurt her friends, and the one who had kept her sane. If she told the evil one she already had a place she belonged to, the kind one, and his mercy, would be gone, possibly forever.

"It's a long story." She murmured.

"Explain." He prompted, unmoving.

"I lost my brother two years ago come December." She began, trying to slow her breaths, "After all this time I still miss him every day, but when it first happened I fell apart. When I couldn't keep up with school or work normally, I lost a lot of friends. It was hard for them to understand. Yugi and the rest of the guys were the only ones who stood by me, through everything." Droplets rolled along her jawline one after another, dripping off her chin and staining her sweater, "They were there for me, and I swore I'd always be there for them if they needed me. No matter what, I can't go back on that."

She expected him to pull away in betrayal, as if burned to the touch, but he swept her into a fast, crushing embrace and lifted her from the ground with both arms, "Shh." He crooned to slow her sobbing, and as it came with more fury than ever, he pressed her head into his shoulder and rocked his body back and forth to soothe her, "Don't be so anxious." He laughed – actually _laughed _at the fear radiating from her body and seeping into his skin, "You've been hurt a lot, haven't you?"

"Yes…"

She clutched the fabric of his suit, trying to talk some sense into herself. All she could think about was how tenderly he held her, how she could barely remember the last time anyone had held her similarly, and she needed him. She didn't care about right or wrong. She needed someone, and he was the only one, for months he had been the only one.

"But your friends haven't hurt you, and you love them for that." She nodded, sniffling unabashedly against his neck, trying to focus on the hand that rubbed slow circles around the small of her back. "I understand you being pressured into this, after all, so many of them are struggling while you've found solace. Or could it be that there's no room left to love me, with their strong claim on your heart?"

"No!" She cried, clutching him tighter, "You know I l-love you, I didn't mean it." She shook her head against the strong frame of his body, "I just wanted…"

"Shh." He coaxed again, "Darling, didn't you come here angry and afraid?" She swallowed thickly, but he did not need an answer to acknowledge the truth, "And wasn't I always there when you needed me? I told you I would make it better, and when you let me help you, it was, wasn't it?"

"Yes." She admitted shakily.

"Don't be so silly as to shut me out. You were happy and adjusted; your friends could have that happiness too, if they accept me the way you used to."

"Nothing has changed Daddy." She was practically begging him to understand, "They were my friends first, and they'll always be my friends. I can't abandon them"

"Tea dear, I would never ask that of you. If you ever thought to abandon your brothers, I'd have to punish you most severely. There are going to be things I do that they don't like, but if you go along with them then you're just as guilty."

"If you saw me at my worst, like they've seen me, you wouldn't want to know me, anymore."

He swatted her leg in outrage, "Don't you _ever_ say that again. I have loved you from your first breath. My heart beats for you always, and when you hurt it breaks for you. I can't protect you from everything, but I will be there with open arms through anything."

"I don't think it'll ever stop hurting."

"Let me tell you something, angel. Life is a terribly cruel thing, and nothing you learn on this earth will change that. We can't prevent pain. Sometimes, we can only cope."

"I can't ignore the emptiness I feel when I'm not with my friends; I need them." She sniffed back more tears, gathering her courage, "Please don't make me choose."

He walked to the place setting at the head of the table and sat down, situating her in his lap and pulling her away from his body. Her eyes threw him into the chaos of a hospital room, holding hands by candle light because the ailing woman's migraines would withstand nothing else. He moved tresses of chestnut brown away from the sticky sweat of her forehead, comforting her.

"I need you to listen very carefully, can you do that?" She nodded against the hand now resting on her cheek, taking in the moisture behind Pegasus's good eye, wincing as he own tears became real again. "If you listen to me, life will be a thousand times better than you've ever imagined. Your brothers will never leave you again, not for summer holidays, college, not even for a moment. We'll mourn the loss together, and I will read you stories, and sing you songs, and build you sandcastles on the beach until you've forgotten the edge of that pain for a while, and you can fall asleep at night. In the mornings, Mama can chase it away with piano music until laughter fills your head and your brothers tell you they're as happy as they've ever been, and you don't forget the hurt but you remember how to find joy in it. You can defy this and the pain will creep up on you again until it consumes you, or you can come back into my arms and stay." He nuzzled her close, pressing a kiss to her forehead, "All or nothing."

"Will it ever be normal again?" She did not just mean life without her biological brother, who Pegasus had adopted into the family as some dearly departed figment of his own.

"Probably not baby." He replied sadly, "But I'll promise you one thing – and I _never_ break a promise. You will smile again." He stabbed a fork down into poached egg and brought it to her lips.

She did not accept it, but didn't turn away either. A tiny piece of her knew the game he was playing, and wanted to fight back. But the struggle had already been so long, and so lonely, and she needed to believe that something could make her truly happy again.

"Come on now, bright eyes." Her heart leapt into her throat, no one called her that except…

Memories of her brother came back in a haze, the first day of school, family vacations, birthdays. Even if Pegasus changed the scenery a little, wouldn't Leo still be Leo? Somewhere inside of her, she hoped so.

Her lips closed around the food, before she could register what had happened, her body finished the morsel and left her stomach churning for more. "That's my girl." His patience had to mean he truly loved her. "I'm so proud of you."

Another bite from her father's fork, chew, swallow. She relented to falsehood and fortune over probity and poverty.

She loved her friends, and she loved Pegasus Crawford too, it didn't matter where or how they were together, as long as she didn't have to miss the people she loved anymore. Soon the plate was empty and her room was in view, and the weight in her stomach tried to swallow her whole. Pegasus left her and took Yugi into his arms, and she knew that something in him had stirred.

From the doorway, she watched the two disappear and wondered if she knew what real love was, anymore. The guard pushed her back far enough to close the door, but she saw their figures in the hall long after they had gone. Her fears had to be wrong, the nagging pull of anxiety couldn't mean the man would hurt Yugi; surely he would feed him, as he had fed her.

She collapsed onto the bed and surrendered, knowing she had taken sides even if Pegasus didn't see it that way. In the moment, she had trusted his judgment over her friends', and all she could do was pray it had been the right choice.

* * *

_I'm out on the edge and I'm screaming my name, like a fool, at the top of my lungs._

* * *

It was nearing nightfall in Egypt and the heat had begun to lift. In the veil of fading sunlight, two men approached a landing helicopter, arms shielding their eyes and nose from the gusts of sand as it touched down. Inside, a single graying employee disengaged his seatbelt, grabbed a briefcase from the unoccupied passenger's seat, and leapt gracelessly into the dirt.

"How the hell you gonna get back up?" The younger researcher questioned, nudging his partner as if to reiterate.

The pilot extended the plunder to his acquaintance silently. At his beckoning, it was Dr. Langley that stepped forward to take it, "You must be Sato." He observed, trying to wipe the shock from his face as he struggled with the weight of the object.

"Bullet proof, boss's orders." The other replied, nodding toward the package with a level of sympathy, "I trust you've found the family?"

"Tell me this." Langley cut in, holding up a hand to quiet his eager young partner, "Are you Ushio Sato?"

The brunet inclined his head forward, "Who else?" He asked edgily.

"Do you know who you're working for?" The twenty year man admonished. For a moment, the other's expression soured.

"Look." He spoke after a moment's pause, "He's getting impatient. If you've found someone willing, you'd be better off going straight there."

"At this time of night?" The question, from the younger archaeologist Hito, was aimed at his companion. "Don't think the locals will go for that."

The elder waved dismissively at him, catching the stares of villagers who had come to marvel at the spectacle of a luxury helicopter in a third world market, "We'll take it from here." His eyes locked on the man who would soon be off to face his employer, and the elaborate crime racket they had all been swept up in. In the next instant, he turned his back and started off in the opposite direction.

Hito sputtered for a moment before turning around and scrambling after him, "Where are we going?" He hissed, not bothering to glance back at the pilot.

Langley lowered his voice, absorbing the gazes of onlookers, both curious and hardened, "I told you I met with a family yesterday morning." He reminded the younger, "He arranged a late meeting for the offering."

"Seems odd for the people around here," the younger mused aloud, accustomed to most men and women locking their doors at dusk, "Think he's hiding it from the wife?"

Addison felt his stomach clench, and swallowed the bile that rose in his throat, "Shut up." He mumbled, pressing onward, "When we get there, let me do the talking." The younger shot him a puzzled look before reluctantly agreeing.

The home they were looking for was set back in a corner of the city's outskirts, modest mud brick nestled between a small fruits and vegetables stand, probably owned by the family, and a stone house of someone in business hierarchy. Ignoring a leering guard from the neighboring home, Langley approached the door and knocked twice.

The man that answered was a head shorter than him, around 5'9, with thick, dark hair he had combed back to mask sweat and dust, "Come in." He offered, stepping aside. Both foreigners removed their shoes, set them on the stone stoop, and gladly took leave of the heat.

The home was not much cooler, but in the living room a small make-shift fan provided much needed air flow. All three men assembled around a small coffee table, sitting cross legged on the floor. The Egyptian shifted uncomfortably as Addison hefted the briefcase into the center.

"My apologies," he said before folding his hands, "shall we join you in prayer first?" The head of house blinked at him before smiling widely and nodding in acceptance. For a moment, the three men and two boys, who were standing in the doorway to the tiny adjoined kitchen, bowed their heads to begin.

When they had finished, Addison opened the briefcase to reveal the sacred item and coins, "Would you like to count it?"

For a moment the recipient looked offended, "No, no." He hurriedly declined, "It is of little concern to me." Addison did his best to smile, knowing that the real honor was in the offering to a higher deity. "Come to me Naeem." He ordered, and at once the eldest son entered the room, bowing slightly to the two men. The father looped an arm around him proudly, "This is my eldest son, I offer my blessing unto you. Please use him for this deed."

The younger man sent Langley a sideways glance, doing his best to keep an unreadable expression, causing the elder to elbow him behind the table. "I'm sorry sir, but the boy has to…"

Both son and father understood that death must be unassisted, and the man turned to address his younger son, "Omari, bring me the bowl from the kitchen." He instructed, the curious young boy did so, shying away behind his father as he approached the room with strange men.

"What is this father?" He whispered, moving to stick his finger into the dark liquid.

The father slapped his hand away sternly, "Never mind it." He said, pointing a finger back the hallway, "Go into your room and wait for me there." The child regarded him for a moment, hurt flashing in his eyes, but he knew better than to disobey, and hurried off back the hall.

The rest of the exchange went smoothly, and for that Addison was grateful. While the eldest child, who could not be a day older than sixteen, lifted the bowl to his lips to gulp down the syrup, he hoped that the younger was oblivious to their wrongdoing. Even now, he didn't think he could live with himself for being an accomplice to the end of such a young life.

Part of him blamed the willingness of the family to see him sacrificed, but he knew better than to project western culture where it did not belong, and narrowed his eyes to the table as the boy fell into sleep.

From then on, the night passed in agonizing slowness. Long after the body had stopped twitching, the man held his soon and spoke softly to him, telling him that he had done a brave thing. And when the heart and breathing had stopped, he released him. For hours they awaited a spiritual awakening, all three wondering if their audience was hindering the transfer.

At last, the father spoke, "You know of the legend?"

Addison nodded, "Very well." He replied, "I think it's best if we take him with us." He continued, taking the money from the briefcase and stacking it on the table. From within, the millennium ring glowed briefly, but the boy's body remained motionless and the item itself was dormant.

The man eyed them curiously before pulling a roll of cloth from under the table and unfolding it, "You must take him in this." He told them, shifting his son's body onto the cloth and wrapping each side of white fabric around him, covering his peaceful face.

_At least he didn't suffer. _Hito thought as Addison took the briefcase and he scooped up the child, wincing at the chill of his body, "Thank you." He offered as the father turned to face his younger son. The boy had crept out of bed in fear, unused to strangers filling his home in the dark.

"Papa."

"Go into your bed my child." The man ordered, "If you behave, I'll send your mother into your room when she returns. She can lay with you until the sun rises." The little one obeyed, and the commander of the home turned to bid his guests farewell, "Will you return?" He asked.

"No." Addison replied.

He nodded in understanding and extended his hand to them a final time, "Many blessings to you."

Returning the pleasantry, they two men headed off to a waiting jeep. An ancient dig site they had been exploring would be the home of the child's body until the spirit made off with it. The ring would go back to Pegasus, never to grace Egypt again. In truth, they expected the ordeal to be over by now, and could only pray they had not made a mistake. The night was still young when they navigated the empty streets to the smaller, neighboring village an hour away, and with nothing to do but wait, they steadied their feet, greeted the others with a nod, and hunkered down to hope for safety in darkness.

* * *

Even looking back over Pegasus's shoulder, he could tell where the man was taking him. The path became familiar and the corridor led to a vase of dried flowers, and he began to ask anyone listening for help. He did not want to sit in that chair as it plunged him into the sea, he was supposed to be on his way out of here, sitting in the game shop with grandpa, drinking soda and joking that in a few years it would be beer.

He closed his eyes, and as he tried to ignore the way Pegasus began rubbing his back in comfort, he felt the swift descent into blackness. His eyes snapped open and his breath caught tight in his chest, "What are you doing?" He accused, choking on inhale as he took in the purple haze of his surroundings, "This can't be the…"

"Oh but it is, Yugi-boy." Pegasus replied, setting the child on his feet. He turned in every direction, heart palpitating in his chest as he scanned the wall-less expanse for an exit, "The shadow realm."

"No." He moaned, spinning wildly, "Don't do this." He begged, tears in his voice, "You can't do this, I can't do this again." He charged the dark aura that had become a barricade to the outside world, but as he neared the edge of misery's tomb, it expanded, running far and fast from his outstretched fingers. "Please god." He fell to his knees, helpless and weak, "I didn't mean it."

"Shh." Pegasus was crooning behind him, but he couldn't think of that, he needed to focus on anything but the man's face or voice.

"Spirit…" he called weakly, hoarse from shock and pain as his mind succumbed to the pressures of the evil dimension. "Where are you?" His heart filled with hope for a moment as the face of the elder flitted into his mind. He remembered the strength seeping into his bones during their duel with Pegasus, an older, experienced mind relieving his own intermittently, "Please come back to me. If you can hear me, if you're out there…come back to me."

He strained hard, squeezing every muscle in his body to stop the temporary rush of adrenaline and endurance from leaking out, and he heard it, loud and clear, _Yugi!_

He lifted his head from crying, pushing himself up onto his knees and then his feet, "Spirit!" He exclaimed, searching for the entity's face. The being spoke again, filling his weary soul with the glorious flame of hope, _stay strong and listen closely, Yugi, Pegasus has locked me away somewhere; parts of my soul are missing from me. _Yugi envisioned a black floating mass, white holes of nothingness scattered across it like land mines, "Where?" He pleaded frantically, "Tell me where."

Pegasus wrapped both arms around him, and at their intrusion, the presence of the spirit spilled from his being out into the stretching, tangible infinity, "Get off me!" He screamed, twisting violently in his hold, thinking that if he could just get away he would be safe.

"Shh." Pegasus insisted, cradling his flailing body like a fussing infant, "I'm so sorry baby, I know it hurts." There was pain in the man's voice Yugi had never heard before, and for a moment, all his anger was gone.

"Help me." He begged.

Pegasus's shoulders shook as the cry escaped his lips, "Oh honey." He choked, "I wish I could." Strong arms pulled him closer and rocked him against the red clad chest. The first tear from his good eye fell onto Yugi's cheek, a cold reminder that this was reality.

He wasn't sure why, he was the one slowly suffocating, but he felt such profound compassion for Pegasus that he let the words come, "Are you hurting somewhere?"

The man sniffed, kissing him tenderly. "You're my baby boy, when you hurt; my whole heart hurts for you."

With the last of his strength, Yugi reached a hand up to touch the tears crawling down the man's sun kissed skin, remembering the exact words coming from his grandfather when he had been eight and broken his arm in a fall. "Have I really been that bad?"

"Yugi.."

"Can you never forgive me?" He pressed.

Pegasus's eye glowed strong and bright against the dim, sinister room, and he continued to rock the boy. All at once Yugi could feel himself engulfed in a white, soothing light, and Pegasus was humming, "I forgive everything, baby boy. You'll be just fine in the morning." The outline of a woman teased him in the distance, and her soft voice mingled with the familiar until he thought he had heard it before.

She stroked his hair and soothed the aches of his body as she ran her hands over his shoulders, his chest, and his arms. _Go to sleep sweetheart. _She instructed gently, and for a moment he thought he felt the presence of the spirit again.

_Protect him. _He said.

And the woman answered, _of course I will, this child will be safe until you're reunited. I'm so glad you decided to keep fighting. _

"Am I dying?" He asked.

Pegasus, still swallowing tears, shook his head, "Just think of it as an operation, once the medicine wears off, you'll be awake, good as new. Let it happen baby, I'll be right here beside you 'til morning."

He strained to hear his Yami or the mysterious woman, but the only sound was Pegasus's crying, and his heart filled with guilt as the white haze grew brighter, warmer. "I love you." He said, because he couldn't stand to hear the man cry. In spite of everything that had happened, he didn't have the heart to hurt him.

The millennium eye lit up a final time, and the light took him in, deeper and deeper, until the entire world was gone.

Pegasus waited until the child's body was limp in his hold, breaths no longer quick or convulsive with exertion. Lingering in a sleepy state of unconsciousness, Yugi was motionless and at peace. He probed the child's mind as he brought them back to the castle, and found no more fear or pain. All that was left was blackness.

He walked many halls to the hospital wing, which his feet knew instinctively. All the time he had spent there with Cecelia had ingrained the path in his mind. In the large, white room, a team of doctor sat on stools beside each of seven beds, four on the right, three on the left.

"Give us a minute." He ordered, and the men and women dispersed.

He pulled back the covers and nestled the child there, tucking them tightly around him. Goosebumps prickled on the small hand he held above the blanket. Soon, he knew, the child would dream again. Shortly after the dreams, he would stir, and tremble, and wake. He could only hope the shadow realm had successfully wiped the boy's memories, so that they could finally start over new.

His lips pressed their warmth to the little forehead, and he looked around at the piles of equipment surrounding each bed. Feeding tubes, IV fluids, heart and breathing monitors, everything down to sterile patches lay in wait for the doctors.

He never intended to have to hurt his children so severely. He never wanted to rob them of their original childhood to create a new one, if they hadn't been so _stubborn_…. He felt tears behind his eyes again and did his best to steel himself. What had to happen had happened, when the children next awoke he could mold their every forgotten memory. At last, they would truly be his.

In the event they were strong enough to retain their identity, he planned to have the millennium ring in his possession. If the strain of the shadow realm would not purge their original families from their minds, the item's ability, he distantly remembered, pressing a hand to his forehead as a confrontation with Bakura crossed his mind, would.

He rose, looking to Yugi one more time as he called the doctors to begin their work of making him well again, "Forgive me."

* * *

_Sometimes when I close my eyes I pretend I'm alright.  
But it's never enough._

* * *

Author's Note: I was originally going to leave the ending of chapter ten up to individual perception, but I realize now that clarity is necessary. Pegasus has always been at war with himself, battling impulses of doing whatever it takes to get what he wants, and knowing that there are some lines one should never cross. He rarely resorts to physical violence in this story, and has only done so when provoked by anger so far. Even in these instances we often see him pull his punches, and the end of chapter ten was no different. My point being, Pegasus did *not* hit the boys with the belt at the end of the scene. He was establishing authority the way an authority figure does, by asserting himself. Actually hitting them would have done nothing but reiterate that he can inflict pain. Pain for the sake of punishment is irrelevant to his cause. Reinforcing Mokuba's assessment that the group doesn't have the means to fight against him is a different story. He does not need to physically break them, it is much more effective to mentally and emotionally condition them to the fact that he can. Though in an obviously disturbed way, he was doing something every parent does as an authority figure, enforcing rules, re-establishing control. For the same reason he did not essentially kill Solomon, he did not beat Tristan and Ryou. There is a ton of foreshadowing in chapter 10 for the mindset and events of this chapter, if you are confused and want or need to discuss them, I am more than willing to do so via private message. Thank you for reading, I'm sorry to have rambled.

The words in italics between page breaks are lyrics to "Echo" by Jason Walker. (I claim no rights to the song.)


	12. Comeuppance

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Yugioh, nor do I claim rights to any of the affiliated characters.

**Warnings/Notes: **The following chapter contains somewhat graphic mention of bodily injury and distress, which may be triggering for some readers. There is also a LOT of choice language / profanity compared to earlier installments.

x-Sheeqsee112-x: Thank you again for the awesome feedback, I'm glad you liked the last chapter. Some of Pegasus's scenes were hard for me to write, although a bit easier than reading them because I have built the pathology of his character until this point. I hope you enjoy chapter twelve.

Yoko Sakura: Thank you for the review, no this is not the end. We're getting close, though.

Just me: Thank you for your feedback and opinions of the characters so far, I can't wait to see if anything's changed at the end of this chapter.

Triva: Thank you for your review, I really appreciate it. I'm having a great time writing so I'm happy it's paid off so far. I hope you enjoy chapter twelve.

* * *

_**Chapter Twelve: Comeuppance**_

* * *

Heat swelled around her in a merciless haze. For a moment, as she reached the opposite end of her village and tore off for the catacombs in the distance, she wondered if the gods were mocking her. If Naeem's death was their will she would do everything in her power to deny it, even if it meant denying them. The breeze teased her for a moment, a gentle whisper through the flowing fabric of her skirt.

It kept her nerve to push forward, and as she reached her destination she found herself thanking whoever forgave her blasphemy. Panting for breath, she paused to glance back at the distant blur of life she had just come from. At this hour it was full of people gossiping, straining their backs to carry goods, and coaxing their children indoors to escape the warmth of midday. All that was left for her was the tomb of sand and stone she had come for, and the stretch of dusty space that would never lead her home again.

Forcing the hand that clutched her heart to her side, she turned and hurried into the dim, humid tunnel. Laughter lured her deeper and deeper until five silhouettes appeared, sitting against corners of the tiny, narrow room.

"What's this?" The broadest of the group rose to his feet, quickly followed by the others, "You stupid bitch." He came into the shadows of the tunnel, grinning wildly, "This will be the last mistake you ever make." In one stride he reached her body, strong arm dragging her closer.

"I've come to make an offer." She whispered shakily. Behind him, the four remaining men burst into cruel laughter.

"What can someone like you offer us?"

"My body, my servitude," she began hurriedly, "I need you to carry out my wish, and then I will be yours."

She tried to free herself from the first man's hold, but found she could not. Adrenaline built in her veins as he jerked her to his chest, hands roaming freely over her body, "We can take all we want from you right now." He breathed huskily.

"500,000 pounds," she shrieked as his rough hand covered her mouth to muffle her cries. At this, he drew back away from her, curious.

"That's a lot of money for one loose woman." He mused, running a hand along his beard and taking in her obvious outrage, "Give me one good reason to believe you've got that hidden away." He lurked dangerously close again, "Seems to me like you can't afford to eat and dress."

"My husband," she panted, trying to quell the fear that had risen in her stomach, "struck a business deal with the Americans that have been wandering here."

"Talk straight." He snapped, impatient, "Tell us what you want and where to get the money, you deliver first."

She shook her head, "No. You get nothing until the men who killed my son are dead, in front of me."

Annoyance was quickly replaced by curiosity as the five men formed a line to barricade the end of the corridor, "Don't waste our time with this shit, let the law deal with it."

"The law finds nothing wrong with it." She seethed.

"Then blame your son for being worthless enough to let himself be killed."

She clenched her fists so hard her body shook, trying to repress the urge to slap the man, "You'll either help me or you won't."

He countered the challenge with one of his own, "We'll get the money, one way or another."

Asking a band of thieves to avenger her son was not the justice she had planned, but it had been less than a day since the news, and she could hardly function. As they moved into the dry heat of open air, she pressed forward and allowed them to lead as she murmured directions through the wind. When the journey dictated the use of a rental car, which she had parked in the shade of two vacant houses, the men looked to one another in confusion.

"You better know what you're doing." Came the gruff voice of the last man to climb into the car, knife glistening in his free hand as he hoisted himself up.

In the driver's seat, Karim did little more than shift gears and start off down the dustbowl path to payment, "How far out?" He asked.

The woman crossed both arms over her chest to hide her trembling, "Not far, in about twenty miles there'll be a dig site, the men we're after are there."

To her dismay they rode in silence, no conversation or lewd behavior to distract her from her confliction. As the road beneath them dipped and curved, she tried not to lose her stomach on the vagrant's bare feet. She focused hard on the rusty floorboards against his caramel skin, stained with dirt and blood. Every time she pried her eyes away for the village approaching through the window, her son's smile threatened to force her out at fifty miles an hour, colliding hard with the dirt to be broken, and bleeding, and one with him.

"Turn right." She instructed as they reached the end of the buildings, and he did so wordlessly.

"How many?"

She jumped, frightened by the sudden intrusion of his voice, "Two." She replied.

He shook his head angrily, "Not how many you want dead." He spat, "How many he's got waiting for us on the inside." She swallowed thickly, she hadn't thought of that. They were six people strong, three with guns, two with blades, and her with nothing but her hands. But she was not afraid, she could kill both men if she had to, in such slow, sweet agony that they begged for the end and she laughed at them, spitting blood from her own wounds.

"Not many." She mumbled, "I've seen most of them spread out to talk among the locals during the day."

"What do they want here?" Someone from the back asked, lazily propping his foot against the back of her seat.

"How should I know?" Anger flared in her gut, "They're foreigners who've come to see how many dead they can collect for their games and their religion."

He kicked hard against her back and she lurched forward a bit at the unexpected impact, "No response from the authorities? And they're American? Either they've got serious money, or you're a lying sack of shit." He grunted lowly in disgust.

"My husband said they came in the night." She paused to swallow her tears, expecting to be mocked for them, and was met with sudden, eerie silence. "They told him they only needed to ask Naeem a few questions, then they would bring him right back. They paid my husband first, we needed the money, he had no reason to think they'd…"

"Did you find the body?" It was the leader, Karim, who spoke, hand rising unconsciously to trace the scar over his eye.

"No."

"But you think he's dead?"

"Our neighbor saw them carrying a sheet of canvas, they thought it was an animal's corpse, they didn't think my husband would let our sons go with men like that after dark. How could they know?"

He shifted the car into park and sat, motionless, not too far from the underground cave of hieroglyphics, "So your husband told you that a group of Americans, who've been talking to people at normal hours for weeks, took your son in the night to ask him questions, killed him without anyone seeing, and walked the dead body right passed your house? Not even westerners are that stupid."

Her heart fell into her throat, and then rose again in a miraculous flutter of hope, "Then you think Naeem is still – "

"I don't think your husband talks about your kid being dead unless he's actually dead." He got out and slammed the door behind him, on cue; the others leapt from their seats and checked their weapons for rounds.

She forced her heavy feet forward, and at the thief king's beckoning, stayed in the middle of the assembly. "Get down!" He shouted once their targets were in sight. "Get the fuck down on the ground, right now!" He roared, they threw their hands up hesitantly, the woman and youngest man dropping to their knees in submission.

"What's this about?" Addison demanded; hand on his hip to draw the pistol from his pocket.

"You touch it; I blow her fucking head off." Karim jerked his gun to the woman on the floor, and on cue one of his men snatched her ponytail around his hand and yanked her to her feet again, thrusting a knife against her throat.

"Which one of you took my son?" The shaking mother called, stepping out from behind the three unoccupied gang members, who had drawn their weapons in a line of defense before her, "Tell me now!"

"Who are you?" Addison asked, moving both hands in front of him in a show of surrender, "We have no one's child." Even his oblivious female companion knew it was a lie. His eyes shifted to the small connected room where the corpse lay, still uninhabited by the spirit.

"Please, I haven't done anything." She moaned, trying to twist away from the blade drawing cool metal to her neck, breaking a layer of skin in the struggle.

"Shut up." Naoki gripped her tighter and pulled the knife back deep enough to draw steady blood. She shrieked in hysteria.

"Help me!" She sobbed, "Please somebody."

"No one's coming to help you, bitch. You're gonna die slow and afraid, just like my baby."

"Your son wanted to die!" Addison exclaimed, thrusting himself toward the brunette, "He knew what the exchange meant. His body would be given to the spirit of the item and he his family would be paid 500,000 pounds." Naoki pulled the knife back in warning as Addison approached, there was nothing he could do but keep talking, frozen in place, "Ask the other child, he was there when we started talking, he heard his father agree! Ma'am I'm sorry you lost your son, but your husband offered him to us and the boy drank the poison of his own accord."

"You're lying, my husband would never – "

"He did!" Hito cried from his place in the dirt, "I swear he saw the ring and everything. He told us it was an honor to serve the entity."

The thief king pointed his gun at the elder's head, cocking the trigger, "Make a choice girl." He called back to her, and she froze, eyes darting from their faces to the room beyond them.

"I want to see it." She cried, "I want to see the item my husband made an offering to." In her heart, she couldn't make herself believe the man she loved would be so desperate for money that he'd….

Addison nodded toward the room, and an unoccupied member of the gang darted for the briefcase inside, thumbing it open and gasping at the expensive keepsake, solid gold, magnificent. "Boss." He moved to pick it up.

"Don't touch it!" The leader snapped, "Turn the fucking case around." Confused, the lackey did so, revealing the millennium ring. A smirk graced the criminal's features before he broke out into hearty laughter, "That's the real thing, and this is way out of your league."

"W-We had a deal – " The distraught mother sputtered.

"These ain't the people you want dead." He pressed, "Your husband offered your son to one of the seven sacred items, no one put a gun to his head."

"Just shut up!" She yelled, "This proves nothing."

"Please, let me explain." Addison begged, heart racing as his companion's blood slowly began to clot, her eyelids closing heavily in Naoki's hold as she succumbed to fear and pain, "We were hired by a man named Pegasus Crawford. He's looking to collect the millennium items to resurrect his wife, he needed the spirit to leave before –"

"He did this out of love?" Malice crept into her voice, "What of Naeem's soul? What of my son?" She broke down sobbing, body heaving as she took in the grizzly scene around her. If her husband had anything to do with this, it was his blood she wanted above anyone else's. But even still, even still she would not have her son back, and every second was another reminder of that.

"I'm so sorry."

"Oh don't feed me that! You're not sorry, you did it! You did it knowing it would kill my son!"

"He agreed." Addison pressed.

"He was a child!" She snarled, "Are you a person or an animal? He was a child. It wasn't his place to die for someone else's fantasy. You tell your employer that if he wants his wife, he can bring her back with the ancient ritual."

"Enough!" The thief king ordered.

"No!" She screamed, thrusting a finger at the eldest of Pegasus's team, "You call him now, and you tell him there's another way to bring back his wife. I won't kill you for someone else's sin, but I will make you see it was yours. For every day I suffer, you will suffer. A thousand years you will live in misery, and still it won't be enough."

"Your husband's probably skipped town." Karim interjected, hoping to distract her.

"Then send one of them after him." She gestured to the men on either side of her, and rolling his eyes, he did so.

"Find the woman's house; no way he'd go without the money." Asa, the chosen member, nodded and turned wickedly to face the exit, "If you're stupid enough to try and keep it all to yourself, we will find you, and we'll make you wish you never walked this earth." The other stopped, sweat forming on his forehead.

"I got it, you idiot. Just talk her out of this." He pressed forward, pocketing the knife, "I'll make it twice as slow for you, so pretend you're watching." He slipped his hand into hers for a moment, and hurried off to the task awaiting him.

The leader shook his gun, a testament of his thinning patience as she relayed an incantation to the archaeologist, "With this ritual, the man you worship will suffer the same pain I have suffered. Let him know true agony for once in his life." She turned to the leader, the stench of adrenaline clinging to her body, "I'm going to join the other, I want to see that my husband's last breath is not in front of his son."

Karim blinked, fury creeping under his skin, "I thought we came because your fucking kid is dead."

"I have two sons. My youngest doesn't need to see – "

He whipped around for a brief moment, "Ali, make sure these men do what she wants, everyone else come with me. We're getting out of here."

Riddled with confusion, the remaining guard sputtered but directed his gun to Addison, nodding to his friend to let the woman go. She fell limply to the floor as the three chased out of the dig site. "Boss, what the hell?"

The tallest of the group turned to his client and slapped her roughly, "You weak, soulless, piece of fucking shit. You're killing your son's rat of a father, then offering yourself to us as payment? What the fuck is your kid gonna do? You gonna leave him on the streets to be like us? That's what'll happen!"

"How dare you!"

"How dare I? How fucking dare you drag us out here over the death of your son, when you're leaving the other one to rot in hell! Where the fuck do you get off sending us on a manhunt as a murderer? You're no better than those men, you're no better than any of us! You get your husband's blood and my word is good, I'm done with you."

"I only wanted…my child is…" She fell to the ground, legs unable to support her weight any longer, "Omari, forgive me. Forgive Mama." She had been so caught up in wrath that she had not stopped to think of her youngest child, clinging to her in the night, needing her. She had been blind to his cries, even though he had been hounding her with questions about the boy who taught him to carve a staff, to fly a kite, just hours ago. It had not seemed true before, but she realized now that she was leaving her healthy child for one long departed.

"We get this done and walk out with the money." He addressed only his men until turning to her, forcing her onto her feet and off to the final resting place of the man she married, "We can do much better than you."

* * *

The process of erasing their memories was slow and draining. Yugi's, as it turned out, had been the shortest and least challenging. Joey fought twice as hard, convinced he would never wake from the inevitable slumber. It took nearly an hour for him to surrender to sleep, and only in the last few minutes was he weak enough to stop resisting Pegasus's arms as they embraced him. Tristan's time passed in much the same way, although he had to pin the boy down to stop him from throwing punches. The body beneath him was moved by adrenaline alone, and once the rush subsided, was too weak from malnourishment to even squirm. He knew then that he had let the strike go too far. As painful as the task was, he blamed himself for letting them endure such bodily harm because he was too soft hearted to do it sooner.

He waited an hour, gathering his strength before he resumed the chore. Two glasses of wine had numbed him a little, but nothing could prepare him for the agony of Ryou's turn. He, like Yugi, knew what was coming. He didn't fight for a moment, rather broke down into hysterics and begged not to be trapped there. Pegasus held him closer than he had held anyone, assuring him that he was safe with Daddy, and it would be over soon. Had the boy's terror not forced him to relive the only experience more traumatic than torturing a child, he would have ended everything. But Cecelia came to him in waves as he hushed and soothed the boy, making the agony quick for both of them. He was too close to victory to pull out now.

Seto fought hard to see Mokuba go, but it was nothing two guards and a sedative couldn't fix. The child succumbed easily compared to the rest. He was too small to fight physically, and resorted to calling for Seto as Pegasus held and soothed him. Eventually his young mind was won over by the cooing of the man above him, and his spirit surrendered to the bliss of oblivion.

Pegasus was left with two children and no more capacity for alcohol, lest he render himself stupid-drunk and useless. An impossible choice left him standing in the hallway between two doors, Seto's and Tea's. The boy was weak from hunger and sedative, so Pegasus hoped he would be the easiest, and quickest, to take care of. Steeling himself, he advanced to Tea's door. She was so close to perfect, did he really need to do this to her? He shook his head to clear it. Trust was not everything, she had memories he could not allow, thoughts that may corrupt or trigger something in her siblings – and aside from that, she was scarred by the loss of a family member that was not his.

He promised to help her heal, and by purging the pain he would fulfill that. He pushed the door open and approached her. She could have no family aside from the one living within these walls. "Tea, come with Daddy for a minute." She turned from the wall opposite him, frightened by his sudden presence in the room. She had been too lost in thought to catch the heavy footfall drawing closer and closer to the bed.

"Is something wrong?" She asked hesitantly. He shook his head no, but his gaze betrayed everything. There was a potent sadness in his eye, oozing conflict not even her nightmares could bring to life. She drew back away from the bed, stumbling to her feet and putting a hand against the wall she had been studying.

"What's all this?" His voice took on that hallow softness she remembered from their earlier conversation, and all at once she realized what her pounding heart had been trying to tell her. What Pegasus Crawford felt may have been love, but it was not the warm flutter of comfort she knew. This was something sinister, a glint of madness stirring that she had been blind to in grief. "Don't be afraid, your friends are waiting for you." He had advanced and taken her wrist while she was busy deciphering the warnings in his good eye.

"Waiting?" She whispered, "I don't understand."

He smiled knowingly, wrapping his free arm around her shoulders and giving her a push toward the door. The hand resting on the wall behind her clawed for something to hold on to, but there was nothing to keep her pinned to the safety of her room. He walked her effortlessly to the doorway. As they entered the halls, she matched his strides reflexively.

"You're such a good girl." He crooned, "So strong and polite, just like your mother." He pressed a softened hand over her eyes, freeing the wrist it had taken, and they descended into cold.

Though they fell for only a moment, her stomach doubled up long after her feet hit the ground. His hand was blocking her vision but still she squeezed her eyes shut. The anxiety built and she tried to calm herself by thinking of his comforting words. _Your friends are waiting for you, your friends… friends… _friends. She froze, heart thrusting through her chest and shaking her veins with epiphany, he hadn't said brothers, he had said….

"Pegasus!" She jerked from his hold unexpectedly, and he struggled to grab her before she hit the stone ground. "What is this place?" Raw fear gripped her as she took in the stretching purple surroundings, radiating sorrow and suffering.

"Mattea." He scolded, "Don't be so rash, you'll hurt yourself." His hands were snaking around her again, tugging her backwards as she set her feet, trying to wrap her up and protect her from the worst of this place.

"How did we get here?"

"It's alright to be scared honey, just let me – "

"Tell me the truth," her voice broke with tears, "did you bring me here?"

He was silent for a moment before both of his hands dug themselves into her shoulders and pulled her back against his chest. He gathered both of her hands to her stomach and pinned them in his own, wrapping the other arm around her as if to swaddle her with his body.

"I'm so sorry." He cooed hurriedly, "I can't risk letting you keep your memories, if they triggered the others', it would only make things complicated. I need you trust me, Tea. Trust Daddy like you promised."

She twisted violently in his hold, kicking her feet back against any part of him she could reach. He held her stronger than ever, body somehow newly energized despite not sleeping since before the ordeal with Yugi.

"What about the things you promised?" Pain seared across her forehead as her emotions built, adding to the stress the shadow realm was layering on her mind, "You told me you loved me! You told me this would get easier!"

"It will!" He shouted, exacerbated, "If you would trust my judgment this would be a lot easier on you."

"On _me_? The only person this entire nightmare has helped is you." She sobbed accusingly, "I trusted you. I told you I couldn't deal with losing my brother, so to help me, you bring me to some fucking wormhole of hell, listening to people sobbing and begging, and asking to be spared? I can't do this!" Her body went limp from exertion and he knew, battling with the lump in his throat, that surrender was not far off, "Please don't make me do this anymore."

"Look at me." Every stitch of confidence unraveled and he sunk to the ground with her, cradling the failing form of her body in his arms. He remembered hurting her all those weeks ago, praying over her and begging for forgiveness. He had found it, only to forsake it. He brushed tresses of her hair back, letting a tear fall onto the pale skin of her cheek. Her eyes were knives in his back, and for a moment he almost couldn't speak. "I was wrong." He mumbled, then, raising his voice, "It wasn't supposed to go this far, you know. But they were so stubborn and they wouldn't give me any leverage." He shook his head in frustration and resumed stroking her hair, "I know I've hurt you here, and I will carry that on my soul for the rest of my life." He paused, swallowing the moisture behind his eyes.

"It doesn't have to be this way."

"No matter how cruel I seemed, I always loved you." He brought her forehead up gently in the crook of his arm, and bent to kiss it. "Your eyes are stepping stones back to the happiest and darkest times in my life, and I know I was hard on you for that. I'm sorry. I only wanted the seven of you to be mine."

He expected her to be falling into sleep, but her eyes were wide open, no more fantasies and charades, "I've learned a lot from you and your game. All of us have. Kaiba will never admit it, and Yugi doesn't understand just yet, but you've connected us in ways we never would have been, if not for duel monsters. For all the times you've hurt us, there has been good too. You don't have to own us to make us yours." She took his hand in hers and clutched it with the last of her strength. He remembered Cecelia's trembling fingers doing the same as she took her final breath, "Our hearts were always full of you."

She spent her final moment of consciousness in forgiveness, because as long as she knew joy, hope, sadness, and regret, she would love Pegasus Crawford. Somewhere deep down, she did not resent that his face would be the last she'd see, if this was the end of her life. She fell into sleep and he held her body to his, dragging it, with the last of his strength, to the master bedroom and collapsing onto the bed.

The shadow realm was behind them, he knew, but it weighed on him with all the fury of the dimension they had just left. Still, he gazed down at her with the focus of novelists penning their final pages, reading the little lines across her forehead. He could see her in pink slip dresses trimmed with lace and tied with bows, a white cardigan trailing after her as she ran down the beach, laughing to the wind, calling for Mama.

She would stumble and take too-big strides in eagerness, and he and Cecelia would laugh at having raised clumsy children. Her sundresses turned to ball gowns and he pictured her at prom, doting on a rough-edged boy with gaps between his teeth. Even now the anger flared in him, urging him to protect his child, and he could almost feeling Cecelia's calming hand on his shoulder, pulling him back.

"Let her go." The soft voice said, and he would. She would dance until her feet ached with all the ingrained grace of age, mirroring her mother's languid turns and spins. He would come early to pick her up, watch her last dance in the arms of a boy he did not approve of, taking him back to first ballet lessons and pirouettes. In five years she would finish college with an engagement ring and his heart would ache, as it ached now, because he would have to let her go.

He closed his eye and imagined her mature, glowing beauty as she talked about marriage. Eyes the picture of her mother's the day he had taken her hand, free spirit running to a soon to be son-in-law. Suddenly illusion faded to a white background, and his sons in well-kept suits vanished to reveal just he and his daughter. She extended her hand for his, and his mind forced the figment of the fiancé to her side, but in truth he was not there. It was the final father-daughter dance before giving her away, and her lips were saying, "Our hearts were always full of you."

A dry sob cracked out into stillness and he broke away from the dream. The child in his bed was unfazed, and he scooped her up to carry her on fawn feet. Humming the tune of the song he and Cecelia walked down the aisle to, he danced and swayed with her in his arms.

"You'll always be my baby." He whispered as the pace picked up and the music played out in his head. "No matter what happens to come between us, don't forget where your home is."

Tears came and he danced through them, cradling her like the small child she should have been. Fingers trailed her cheek to coax blue eyes open and gaze longingly upon them, knowing _their _child may have had them, too. But she was too far gone to wake, and he did not force her. She loved him, just as he would always love her, and she never needed bribing with birthday candles and vacations. He fell to his knees, tucking her into the bed and trembling as he struggled to grip the sheets. She had been his without questions, reservations, or grudges.

He wept into the fabric of the comforter, picturing his wife, who had loved him beyond his fame, fortune and titles. She was always his better half, and in present reality, his only daughter had become that, too. He had been too blind to see that she admired him, despite everything, with no persuasion at all.

The shrill ring of his phone pierced his thoughts, and he let out a low growl as he fished for it. Clearing his throat to force traces of tears away, he flipped it open, "Hello?"

* * *

The remaining gunmen lowered his weapon, leaving the two conscious members of Pegasus's team baffled. "The ritual that woman mentioned is a curse of ancient Egypt." He began, suddenly tired and strained, "It's a trick more horrible than books can tell and men can imagine. It goes against nature. The dead aren't supposed to live again."

Addison thought to reach for his pistol, but knew he couldn't risk it with Olivia unconscious at the criminal's feet, "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying anyone who's ever spoken the damn thing has been damned, and I got no place in this. Nothing you do is gonna bring that kid back, he's gone. Whether you want your boss to succeed or suffer is up to you, but something like this doesn't pass over messengers."

"So this is the only way Pegasus gets what he wants, but if we do this, it hurts all of us?" Hito questioned, confusion prominent in his voice.

The thief turned his back to them, "I don't know if there's one way or a hundred, I just know it shouldn't be done. There's another life to be with the dead, they don't belong in this one. People here believe there's a special place in hell for those that defy fate, and that curse has proved it over and over. You have any part in him going through with this, and you're done in, for good. Forget your families; they're as good as gone to you. The minute someone starts chanting, it's over for anyone involved."

"You think telling us this pardons you?" Addison spat disgustedly.

The native only laughed his way out of the cave, "I'm telling you not to be stupid. Keep a secret and no one gets hurt."

"If that were true, and you were in danger, you'd have killed us already."

The man stopped and turned to face Addison a final time, shrouded in the darkness of the path unlit by lanterns, "Egypt, lake of eternal fire, hell's all the same to me." With that he turned again, and was gone.

"What the fuck was that about?" Hito struggled to his feet, turning to Addison, who immediately grabbed his gun in one hand and cell phone in the other, "What are you doing?"

"I can't pretend we didn't kill that boy." He raved, clearly unnerved, "For nothing. The spirit of the ring wouldn't have taken this long to possess a soulless body if it was actually interested in one."

"Why would he lie to us?"

Addison shrugged, trying to steady his fingers enough to dial, "Hell if I know."

"What are you doing?" Hito repeated angrily, taking a clumsy step toward his coworker.

"I'm going to find out what's really going on here, and then I'm going to tell him about that damn incantation. We owe it to those kids; otherwise they'll end up like the boy in there. His mother was right; they're innocent victims in this."

Hito lunged for the phone as Addison cocked the pistol, "Didn't you hear that guy? If you tell anyone about this, we're all dead. I'll be damned if you're dragging me into it, and Olivia too. If you have regrets that's your own business, I'm not delivering myself to demons on a silver platter."

"I've told myself that over and over." He shook his head numbly, "But I allowed all of this to happen. For years I indulged that man's fantasies, the sicker they got the more distant I became, but I never encouraged him to get help. He would've been fine if he'd have just _talked_ to someone. But I didn't tell him that because I was too concerned about losing my job for one of the most prestigious men in the world. Now a child is dead, and I'm a party to it, and if we don't stop this scheme – whatever it really is – seven more could be dead before tomorrow."

The younger's anger was too strong to suppress, "They could be dead right NOW, you idiot. We're not there to see them alive and well, he's kept them brainwashed for months, the fucking damage is done. Even if they get out of there, you think they're just gonna go back to school dances and part time jobs dipping ice cream? Pull yourself together; you're too far in to play the sympathy card."

"Don't make excuses for this." He pulled up speed dial contacts and pressed one. Almost instantly Pegasus's number became visible.

"You'd seriously leave Martha without a husband, James and his kids without their father and grandfather – for _strangers_? Don't do this, I won't let you do this."

Pegasus's voice sounded on the other line, and Addison moved the phone against his jacket momentarily, raising the gun in his other hand, "You don't have a choice."

"Hello?" Pegasus hissed into the phone again.

"Sir, we're having a problem with the millennium ring, the spirit hasn't accepted the offering."

He brought a hand to his face, moving the curtain of hair away, "What do you mean it hasn't accepted the offering?"

"We think maybe it's because it was a child, sir we made a terrible mistake but the boy was willing and we assumed – "

"It is a malicious spirit." He spat, "It doesn't care if the host is a child as long as it's able bodied. Why a full team of armed, articulate men couldn't persuade someone older is beyond me, but if you preyed on the weak I assure you, the only one morally affected is you."

Addison blinked at the man's underlying outrage. He knew his boss was dying to tell him how incompetent and pathetic he was for picking a child, of all people, and for a moment he had hope, "How are the children, sir?" He asked, lowering his tone until it was soft and calm.

"They're missing their mother." Pegasus growled to reiterate his word was not to be questioned.

In that moment, Addison realized that no matter how much his employer grew to the love the hostages, it would never be enough to let them go, "We've found an ancient ritual that can bring back the dead without the seven sacred items." He admitted, battling with the tremors as they began to wrack his body.

Pegasus, plagued by heartache and anxiety at having one child left to purge, ignored the sharp pang of skepticism rising in his bones, "You're serious?" He barked into the phone.

Addison moved the gun away from Hito and pressed the barrel to his own head, "Yes sir, all you have to do is – "

"Spare me the details." Pegasus interrupted as his employee cocked the trigger, ready to relay his message and surrender himself for his sins, "You can explain when you observe this ritual, in person. Come as fast as you can, my patience grows thin." The phone snapped shut. Addison dropped the device to the ground and sobbed. Even his reprieve of guilt, it seemed, would be on Pegasus's terms. He prayed he could keep his composure long enough to be the man's undoing.

"Get up." He ordered shakily as he fired the round into the wall opposite him, disturbing the foundation of the cave. "Put her over your shoulder and lead us out, we're going back to the island."

* * *

Pegasus rose with newfound strength and stamina, pressing a final kiss to Tea's forehead before carrying her off to waiting doctors, "Take good care of her." He called threateningly over his shoulder as the doctors cast one another puzzled looks. Six children in various stages of starvation, rendered unconscious within forty-eight hours of one another, something didn't fit. It was a unanimously silent acknowledgement. In the end they observed his wishes and cared for the six children they knew their employer would soon make seven.

As Pegasus gathered Seto into his arms, he noted that his instructions had not gone undone. The boy was bound by his wrists and ankles, cursing furiously as he squirmed, a ragdoll against broad shoulders.

"Don't fight your father." He scolded sternly as they reached the gruesome purgatory, but Seto was far from hearing him.

"You sick creep, get your hands off me! Take me back to Mokuba – "

"Mokuba is sleeping peacefully, soon you will be too." Pegasus hushed, running a hand through the boy's baby-fine hair. He wasted no time in engulfing the child in a white, soothing light, millennium eye working to overtax his mind as quickly as possible. Seto had already endured horrific abuse and trauma, and Pegasus worried that this may not be as effective as it appeared to be for the others.

His eye glowed, filling him with an ominous surge of power as Kaiba's last conscious memories took shape. Pegasus could feel himself become a figure in the child's imagination and realized that this was not just a memory, but a recurring night terror.

"Seto." He whispered soothingly, "I need you to relax, this will be over quickly." It did not shake the man from his wrongful place in the child's head. He was forced to be an audience to the disturbing final images of Seto's consciousness, which unfolded in shrill screams from a television.

"_Jesus! JESUS!" _Somewhere below him, he could make out an office with a small television sitting on a desk. In the far corner of the room, a young Seto Kaiba stood in the corner, listening to his stepfather's favorite movie scene over and over.

Something swept him in closer, and the screen became clear. Smoke encircled a woman, flames crawling up a wooden stake where she was bound, devouring her flesh and gnawing tediously on her bones. She screamed in white-hot agony, begging, praying, scrambling for any coherent thoughts that might distract her from the pain. The demented businessman Pegasus knew from a few functions his father held, grinned wickedly at the screen, his hands fumbling under the desk as his breaths became deep and irregular. Holding Seto closer, he flinched away from the dream in disgust.

"_This is where you're going, you worthless little shit." _The graying CEO spat as the child muffled his terrified cries with both hands, _"If you don't start living up to this company name, you're gonna burn in hell. You're a bastard child with no hope left in this world, and it'd do me no good to see you baptized – even the savior doesn't want you." _

Seto shook convulsively in the corner, pressing both hands over his ears, and eventually, when his stomach threatened to void itself, over his mouth again. Over and over he listened to the woman scream, experiencing her death a thousand merciless times, praying to be saved from the atrocity. But there was no savior for him. There was only the devil and a remote, dragging a cursor back, rewinding, replaying, getting off.

Pegasus forced himself out of the boy's mind, panting and sick. Beneath him Seto was limp, burning with shame, embarrassment, and self-loathing. The darkness was weighing on him and he knew sooner or later he would face the end. He had been too stupid to abandon Yugi and his ridiculous friends to get he and Mokuba to safety. His heart clenched at the thought of his little brother, Mokuba didn't deserve this. He hated Pegasus, he hated him more than –

"Sweetheart, I am so sorry." The bastard was holding him like he held Yugi the first few days of their captivity, in the dining room. "I'm so, so sorry." Was he crying? Seto tried to shrug away from his hold, but knew it was a wasted effort.

"You're not sorry." He choked, "You always wanted this." For the most part, he could force himself to forget about those long nights in his stepfather's study, tell himself that religion, and fate, and destiny were not real. Sometimes he believed it. But as he lay in what he believed to be the final moments of his life, he feared, somewhere deep inside of him, that fire was waiting on the other side. The only comfort he could take in an afterlife being real, was Pegasus being subject to its endless torture when he met his own end.

"Listen to me." Pegasus begged, battling with his emotions, trying to ignore the rage that swelled in his stomach knowing Gozaburo Kaiba was already dead, safe where he could not make him suffer for his unspeakable cruelty. "You're just fine; you can hear your heart beating normally, and your breathing relaxing. I just need you to sleep for a little while, and when you wake up you won't have those thoughts, anymore.

"Shut up!" He hated that his body was admitting it by visibly relaxing in the man's arms, but the words gave him hope. He was shutting down to rest, not decomposing, not slipping into death.

"I love you, son." Pegasus brought him into an embrace, placing his head delicately on his shoulder.

Kaiba jerked, fighting unconsciousness a few more moments. Without knowing why, he looked at the aura surrounding him and Pegasus, and began to question if this place was earthly. Whenever he woke up, he would force himself to stop dealing with these thoughts – they only destroyed his clarity, but for now, in Pegasus's arms, something final came spilling out before he could stop it.

"All my nightmares are of fire."

The awful memories of childhood lost their potency little by little until they faded entirely. As Pegasus prattled on about the life he would have as his son, he wondered – in a fragmented moment of drug induced weakness – if this was what real fathers told their children. He shook his head to banish the thoughts, trying to ignore them by surrendering to blackness.

The world was a soft voice of someone he tried to hate, and the blonde curls of a woman he didn't know, then, before he was ready, it was simply gone.

* * *

Author's Note: I know there will be some strong feelings about this chapter, and that's okay. I'm not here to preach anything, Yugioh does have loose ties to religion and I am in no way intending to mock someone's belief. This was intended to be used as a character study and element of plot, nothing more, nothing less. Loose ends will be tied up next chapter, but if you're really confused about something (and it doesn't give away future chapters) I'm more than happy to discuss it with you. As always, thank you for reading.


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